nd but a formal reluctance to accept the numerous and
costly gifts proffered by relatives who at less emotional times would
have grudged you a Christmas card?

We did. We went home and were made a fuss of; we took our leave and nice
things were said to us, tears welled, and hands, peculiarly firm or
peculiarly tender as the case might be, held ours for rather longer than
the customary period. With a brave "Pooh! Pooh! It doesn't matter in the
least," we went off at last, off amid deafening cheers to the unknown
future....

The following week-end we were home again as before, but, since the joy
of a temporary reprieve may outweigh even the annoyance of an
anticlimax, they were pleased to see us and gave us another farewell
only slightly less emotional than the last. But on the third of this
series of week-ends a note of insincerity crept into the "Goodbye, old
man," and the hand-pressure was slightly curtailed.

Alas! there have been even more week-ends since that. I trust it is only
our self-consciousness makes us think that we are looked upon as frauds,
who have obtained by false pretences the field-glasses, electric
torches, knitted wares, tears, hand-clasps and choicest superlatives of
our friends. It becomes worse as time passes; we do not go home now, and
we would even refrain from writing if we could hope by that means to
have our whereabouts unknown and our existence doubtful. If the
authorities won't part with us, they might at least give us an address
which would make it look as if they had--something like "Capt. Blank,
Blankth Blank Regt., Blankth Fighting Force, c/o G.P.O." What will
happen is that we shall go suddenly and without time to explain, and,
when our friends are told, their faces will cloud over, not with sorrow
at our departure but with annoyance at being pestered with the news of
it again. It is a hard life, is a soldier's!

One bold bad private informed our most youthful orderly officer, upon
being asked if he had had a sufficient breakfast: "Yes, thank you, Sir:
a glass of water and a woodbine;" otherwise personal idiosyncracies
become less marked, since individualities become merged in the corporate
machine. The battalion is cross as a whole, nervy as a whole, laughs as
a whole, almost sneezes or has indigestion as a whole. Recalling the
good old days of annual camps, when energy used to be rewarded with free
beer rather than demanded as a matter of course, the battalion as often
as not si