nodded agreement. "Too awful much,
sometimes. Why, he used to come into a rest billet almost every day
after we'd come there all shot to bits with only a corporal's guard o'
the whole battalion, muddy and tired and sleepy; yes, and what's the
first thing we hear, but begad, we've all to shine up and get spic and
span for parade because the O.C. says the C.C. orders it. Out we go,
like a ragbag remnant and he looks us over, says he knows we're tired
and makes a speech----"

"Oh, boy, them speeches!" sighs the chum.

"Tells us how well we've done and all like o' that, and at the end says
there's such a devil of a job yonder that he's compelled against his
will----"

"Oh, yes, dead aginst his will," pipes the chum.

"To intimate that he'd like us to trail back to the show and do it some
more for the sake of the victory and the good long billet we'll get
presently. Yes, Currie was a good General. He did the work, he got
results. But never tell me he was easy on his men--becuz four years I
was wan o' them."

One allows in this man's opinion for the tendency to "grouch" that
always appears in veterans who know best how to fight. Men like this
were "fed up" on the war, of which they never saw anything but the
glimpse of their own sector. The war was over now, and between the
armistice and getting home many such men had a chance to talk, as they
wearily waited for a ship.

"Yes, and that capture of Mons," says the chum, as he sips a little
drink. "Altogether useless and against orders. The war was over."

"No," says the veteran; "that was a mere trifle, as I see it. Not one,
two, three with the march into Germany. Begad! if ever I was a rebel
it was then on that 150 miles, says you. But--'twas so ordered by the
C.C. and we went."

It was not likely that Gen. Currie believed his army to be rebellious
against that march. He was too much of an insurgent to fear
insubordination. He had packed many a pipe-clay parade officer home
for inefficiency.

A machine gun officer, who had got a Blighty at Passchendaele and was
asked by the writer what he thought about Currie, admitted that he knew
very little about him because all he saw at the time was his own little
corner of the show. He casually referred the question to two others,
one of whom was a H.Q. staff officer, and saw Currie at first hand for
months at a time. The answer was:

"I'll say that Currie always inspired me with absolute confidence in
his