more freely to Staff officers and Lieutenant-Colonels, in view of the
danger of brain fag and nervous strain following upon their greater
mental exertions and their abnormal exposure to shell fire and the
weather. The former class went home about every eleventh, the latter
about every third month.

The French Parliament fairly early in the war, with that gross lack of
discrimination and of military understanding habitual to politicians,
insisted on the granting of leave every three months to all ranks in all
theatres of war. The Italian Parliament pedantically laid down a uniform
period of six months. The British Parliament, with the sure political
instinct of our race, preferred to leave the whole matter in the hands
of the War Office. The interference in purely military affairs of
unpractical sentimentalists was strongly discouraged at Westminster.

Why no leave to England could be granted except in special cases, was
cogently explained from time to time during the summer in circulars
written by Staff officers of high rank, who had frequent opportunities
of informing themselves of the realities of the situation, while
visiting London. These circulars were read out on parade and treated
with the respect which they deserved. To allay possible, though quite
unreasonable, unrest, it was determined to open a British Club, or Rest
Camp, at Sirmione, which, as every reader of Tennyson knows, stands on
the tip of a long promontory at the southern end of Lake Garda. Here a
week's holiday was granted to a large proportion of the officers and a
small proportion of the rank and file. Many officers went there more
than once. Two large hotels were hired, which had been chiefly
frequented before the war by corpulent and diseased Teutons, for whom a
special course of medical treatment, including sulphur baths, used to be
prescribed.

One of these hotels was now set apart for British officers, the other
for men. A funny little person in red tabs was put in charge; there were
various speculations as to his past activities, but all agreed that he
had got into a good job now, and wasn't going to lose it, if tact could
prevent it. This little man used to stand outside the hotel gates as
each week's guests arrived from the steamer, and always had a cheery
smile of welcome for every Field officer; to General officers he showed
special attentions. He took his meals in the same room as the rest of
us, but at what was known as "the Staff ta