out exactly as Joye
forecast: about ten days later I met him on the grand staircase in
Worsley Hall!

FOOTNOTES:

[9] This refers to the newspaper controversy in the _Middleton Guardian_
in which I had been engaged throughout the whole time I was at the
Front.

[10] He afterwards won the D.S.O. and Bar, Belgian Ordre de la Couronne
and Belgian Croix de Guerre.

CHAPTER XV

THE DAYS BEFORE

On the evening of July 25 the 164 Brigade marched back from the Watou
area to the camps behind Ypres; we went to Query Camp. In my tent at
Query Camp on July 27 I wrote my last letter home before going into
action. It ran as follows:

"I have received all letters up to date: I got father's letter of July
23 this morning. I am still very busy, but have found time this
afternoon to send a reply to 'Bumjo's' insolent letter to the _Middleton
Guardian_ and to write this.

"We left the last camp at 9.30 on the evening of July 25 and marched
back here. We are now in a camp behind the line. We got here at 1 in the
morning. Then we had dinner. A and B Companies mess in the same tent, so
we had the two new officers--Barlow and Smith--who arrived just before
we marched off from the other camp.... They have just come out from
Scarborough.

"We went to bed at 2.20. Allen and I had a tent to ourselves, but were
yesterday joined by Harwood, a new officer who arrived yesterday and has
been posted to B Company. He seems all right. The new officers are all
fresh from cadet battalions via Scarborough. Captain Cocrame, who has
been at the Army School since June, has returned to-day, so our mess is
increasing. A and B Company Mess now consists of Captain Briggs, Captain
Cocrame, West, Barlow, Smith, Young, Dickinson, Allen, Harwood and
myself. Captain Andrews has gone to Headquarters.

"The weather just now is glorious--too hot to move. Just by our tent
there is a military railway constantly carrying things and men up to the
front line. The engines and trucks are quaint little things. They have a
bell which sounds like the trams running from Blackpool to Bispham and
beyond. One expects to see the sea when one hears the tinkle, but one
merely sees--well! One sees life at the Front; one hears the roar of the
guns; and if one cares to lift one's eyes to the sky one sees copious
observation balloons and aeroplanes. The day is very near now. This will
probably be my last letter before going into action, so do not worry if
you do not hea