thwith to the Near East to stem the tide of
calamity.

Still, we must have _something_ to chat about.

* * * * *

Meanwhile Brigade Majors and Adjutants, holding a stumpy pencil in one
hand and a burning brow in the other, are composing Operation Orders
which shall effect the relief, without--

(1) Leaving some detail--the bombers, or the snipers, or the
sock-driers, or the pea-soup experts--unrelieved altogether.

(2) Causing relievers and relieved to meet violently together in some
constricted fairway.

(3) Trespassing into some other Brigade Area. (This is far more
foolhardy than to wander into the German lines.)

(4) Getting shelled.

Pitfall Number One is avoided by keeping a permanent and handy list
of "all the people who do funny things on their own" (as the vulgar
throng call the "specialists"), and checking it carefully before
issuing Orders.

Number Two is dealt with by issuing a strict time-table, which might
possibly be adhered to by a well-drilled flock of archangels, in broad
daylight, upon good roads, and under peace conditions.

Number Three is provided for by copious and complicated map
references.

Number Four is left to Providence--and is usually the best-conducted
feature of the excursion.

Under cover of night the Battalion sets out, in comparatively
small parties. They form a strange procession. The men wear their
trench-costume--thigh-boots (which do not go well with a kilt),
variegated coats of skins, and woollen nightcaps. Stuffed under their
belts and through their packs they carry newspapers, broken staves
for firewood, parcels from home, and sandbags loaded with mysterious
comforts. A dilapidated parrot and a few goats are all that is
required to complete the picture of Robinson Crusoe changing camp.

Progress is not easy. It is a pitch-black night. By day, this road
(and all the countryside) is a wilderness: nothing more innocent ever
presented itself to the eye of an inquisitive aeroplane. But after
nightfall it is packed with troops and transport, and not a light is
shown. If you can imagine what the Mansion House crossing would be
like if called upon to sustain its midday traffic at midnight--the
Mansion House crossing entirely unilluminated, paved with twelve
inches of liquid mud, intersected by narrow strips of _pave_, and
liberally pitted with "crump-holes"--you may derive some faint idea of
the state of things at a busy road-junction ly