e, practically all the originals to the number
of about 50, the sole remnants of 26 months of war, welcomed back to
France for the second time, but not to the Seventeenth; orphans to be
adopted by strange parents.

* * * * *

"'Quick march.' The party swung slowly down the rough track between
the huts. It was one of those innumerable hutted campments behind
Poperinghe. At the junction of the road stood Colonel Inglis, Majors
Morton and Paterson, Captain Dunsmuir and R.S.M. Kelly. It all seemed
so usual, save that there was more handshaking and waving of bonnets.
'Cheerio, old chap--best of luck.' Gone, those pals of three years in
camp, trench, billet and shell hole; but we never knew how great a
part of our life they had become. Then in the look in each other's
eyes, in the huskiness of the voice, rather than in the ill-concealed
tear, came the full realisation of the undying spirit of our old
Chamber of Commerce Battalion, and the certainty that the death of the
Battalion had bequeathed to us the LIVING SOUL OF THE SEVENTEENTH."

III.--AN ODD MUSTER.

THE SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION.

A corporate body is always a great mystery. Before very long it always
develops a spirit which is something more than the sum of the
individual spirits which compose it. And no man can quite say how it
comes into existence. It may be a greater spirit than that of any
individual. Sometimes it is not so great as that of its members.

And Battalions are no exception to this rule. Each brings forth a
spirit, and by that spirit the members are henceforth profoundly
influenced. It is not the spirit of the Colonel, or of any particular
member. It is the spirit of the Battalion, something compounded by the
subtle alchemies of the spiritual world out of the individual souls of
officers and privates alike.

Of the spirit of the 17th H.L.I. it may at once be said that the
outstanding characteristic was high-hearted youth. Most of the members
of the Battalion were young, but the Battalion itself had the
qualities of youth more truly than any of them. It was essentially
gay. It did its work to the accompaniment of a fine hilarity. It could
laugh even on the eve of battle. It could even be uproarious and
exuberant as only the really young can.

And yet it was very efficient youth. To a man these soldiers took
their work seriously, and because they brought to it a fine quality of
intelligence, the Battalio