ldn't unless I had to. Of course you'll take tea in our
mess?"

I was glad to take tea--in a little house at the end of the ruined
high-street of Vermelles which had by some miracle escaped destruction,
though a shell had pierced through the brick wall of the parlor and had
failed to burst. It was there still, firmly wedged, like a huge nail.
The tea was good, in tin mugs. Better still was the company of the
gunner officers. They told me how often they were "scared stiff." They
had been very frightened an hour before I came, when the German gunners
had ranged up and down the street, smashing up ruined houses into
greater ruin.

"They're so methodical!" said one of the officers.

"Wonderful shooting!" said another.

"I will say they're topping gunners," said the major. "But we're
learning; my men are very keen. Put in a good word for the new
artillery. It would buck them up no end."

We went back before sunset, down the long straight road, and past the
chateau which we had visited in the afternoon. It looked very peaceful
there among the trees.

It is curious that I remember the details of that day so vividly,
as though they happened yesterday. On hundreds of other days I had
adventures like that, which I remember more dimly.

"That brigade major was a trifle haughty, don't you think?" said my
companion. "And the others didn't seem very friendly. Not like those
gunner boys."

"We called at an awkward time. They were rather fussed."

"One expects good manners. Especially from Regulars who pride themselves
on being different in that way from the New Army."

"It's the difference between the professional and the amateur soldier.
The Regular crowd think the war belongs to them... But I liked their
pluck. They're arrogant to Death himself when he comes knocking at the
door."

VII

It was not long before we broke down the prejudice against us among
the fighting units. The new armies were our friends from the first, and
liked us to visit them in their trenches and their dugouts, their
camps and their billets. Every young officer was keen to show us his
particular "peep-show" or to tell us his latest "stunt." We made many
friends among them, and it was our grief that as the war went on so many
of them disappeared from their battalions, and old faces were replaced
by new faces, and those again by others when they had become familiar.
Again and again, after battle, twenty-two officers in a battalion mess
we