the necessity of respecting the property
of those exalted persons who surround their estates with barbed wire,
and put up notices, even now, warning off troops. At present we either
crawl painfully through that wire, tearing our kilts and lacerating
our legs, or go round another way. "Oot there," such unwholesome
deference will be a thing of the past. Would that the wire-setters
were going out with us. We would give them the place of honour in the
forefront of battle!

We have fired a second musketry course, and are now undergoing
Divisional Training, with the result that we take our walks abroad
several thousand strong, greatly to the derangement of local traffic.

Considered all round, Divisional Training is the pleasantest form of
soldiering that we have yet encountered. We parade bright and early,
at full battalion strength, accompanied by our scouts, signallers,
machine-guns, and transport, and march off at the appointed minute to
the starting-point. Here we slip into our place in an already moving
column, with three thousand troops in front of us and another two
thousand behind, and tramp to our point of deployment. We feel
pleasantly thrilled. We are no longer a battalion out on a
route-march: we are members of a White Army, or a Brown Army,
hastening to frustrate the designs of a Blue Army, or a Pink
Army, which has landed (according to the General Idea issued from
Headquarters) at Portsmouth, and is reported to have slept at Great
Snoreham, only ten miles away, last night.

Meanwhile our Headquarters Staff is engaged in the not always easy
task of "getting into touch" with the enemy--_anglice_, finding him.
It is extraordinary how elusive a force of several thousand troops
can be, especially when you are picking your way across a defective
half-inch map, and the commanders of the opposing forces cherish
dissimilar views as to where the point of encounter is supposed to be.
However, contact is at length established; and if it is not time to go
home, we have a battle.

Various things may now happen to you. You may find yourself detailed
for the Firing-line. In that case your battalion will take open order;
and you will advance, principally upon your stomach, over hill and
dale until you encounter the enemy, doing likewise. Both sides then
proceed to discharge blank ammunition into one another's faces at
a range, if possible, of about five yards, until the "cease fire"
sounds.

Or you may find yourself in S