mour," said Draycott, watching him keenly.
"What's the trouble?"

"The trouble is Hell." The Quartermaster passed his hand wearily over
his forehead. "Utter, absolute, complete--Hell. The boys have been in
the front line for twenty-one days; and"--he spoke with a sudden
dreadful earnestness--"the end is not far off."

"My God!" muttered Draycott, "is it as bad as that?"

* * * * * *

No trenches, no dug outs, no reserves. Ceaseless German attacks, rain,
mud, death. And then, three or four days of icy coldness, with the
bitter Arctic wind cutting the sodden, tired, breaking men like a
knife. Fighting every hour, with rifles and bayonets and
fists--sleepless, tired out, finished. Only a spirit which made
possible the impossible supported them: only the glory of their
traditions held the breaking line of Old Contemptibles to the end. And
at the end--they died. . . .

But their spirit lives on, undimmed, untarnished. It is the spirit of
the New Armies--the Civilian Armies of Britain. They were training
back in England when Clive Draycott went to the Land: they were
learning the message of the old Regulars from New Zealand to Yukon. It
is not learned in a day--that message: there is much watering and
weeding to do before the seed can reach perfection, but the Land would
not wait. . . . It was greedy then--as now; the only difference was
the amount of grain available. And when Clive Draycott went to it
there was very little. To God Almighty the praise. What there was,
was very good.

PART II

THE LAND

I. A DAY OF PEACE
II. OVER THE TOP
III. THE MAN-TRAP
IV. A POINT OF DETAIL
V. MY LADY OF THE JASMINE
VI. MORPHIA
VII. BENDIGO JONES--HIS TREE
VIII. THE SONG OF THE BAYONET

I

A DAY OF PEACE

"For the fourteenth morning in succession I rise to a point of order.
Why is there no marmalade?" The Doctor glared round the breakfast table.
"I perceive a pot of unhealthy-looking damson, and a tin of golden syrup,
the greater part of which now adorns the infant's face. Why is there no
marmalade?"

"Could I remind you that there is a war on two miles up the road, my
splay-footed bolus-booster?" With a grand rolling of his R's, the man
who had driven a railway through the Rocky Mountains, and who now boasted
the badges of a subaltern in His Majesty's Corps of Royal Engineers, let
drive. "Ye come to live with us much against our will, be