that might be, and Jimmy's in that hare old Dardelles." He
couldn't rightly say when the elder had gone out, "but it might be a yare
ago come muck-spreadin'."

_November_, 1915.

More money and more men is still the cry. The war is now costing five
millions a day, and the new vote of credit for L400,000,000 will only carry
us on till the middle of February. This is "Derby's Day," and the new
Director of Recruiting inspires confidence in his ability to make good, in
spite of the Jeremiads of Lord Courtney and Lord Loreburn. The lot of a
Coalition Government is never easy, and public opinion clamours not for
Jeremiahs but for Jonahs to lighten the Ship of State. Mr. Winston
Churchill, wearying of his sinecure at the Duchy of Lancaster, has resigned
office, explained himself in a long speech, and rejoined his regiment at
the Western front. Lord Fisher, whose doubts and hesitations about the
Dardanelles expedition were referred to by the late First Lord, has been
content to leave his record of sixty-one years' service in the hands of his
countrymen. In the briefest maiden speech ever delivered in either House he
stated that it was "unfitting to make personal explanations affecting the
national interest when my country is in the midst of a great war." Here at
least the traditions of the "Silent Service" have been worthily maintained,
just as they are maintained by the Port Officer R.N.R. at an Oriental
seaport, a thousand miles from the front, out of the limelight, with no
chance of glory, with fever from morn till night, who "worries along by the
grace of God and the blessing of cheap cheroots."

In Flanders the rain has begun its winter session, and, as a military
humorist put it, trench warfare is becoming a constant drain. The problem
of parapet mending has been reduced to arithmetical form _a la_
Colenso, as follows: "If two inches of rain per diem brings down one
quarter of a company's parapet, and one company, working about twenty-six
hours per diem, can revet one-eighth of a company's parapet, how long will
your trenches last--given the additional premisses that no revetments to
speak of are to be had, and that two inches of rain is only a minimum
ration?" The infantryman finds the men of the R.F.C. interesting and
stimulating companions. "These airy fellows talk of war as if it were a
day's shooting, and they the cock pheasants with the best of the fun up
aloft. Upon my word, the hen who hatched such birds sh