heir temporary billet, an unoccupied mansion originally
designed to house twenty persons at the outside. There was an overflow,
as you may imagine, which had to be lodged in the outhouses. The garage
I marked out for twenty-five, leaving it to themselves to decide whether
or not the inspection-pit was the place of honour reserved for the
N.C.O. in charge. Other business prevented my receiving them at the
front gate and conducting them to their several rooms. When I did arrive
on the scene it was my heartrending duty to explain to Privates
Anstruther and Vernon that the reason why they couldn't find their
bedroom was because they had filled it with their motor-cars. But it is
wonderful how people can settle down to anything; an hour later I found
the twenty-five of them comfortably tucked in for the night, crooning
unanimously, "There's no place like home!" To-day they have chalked up
on the wall, "The Ritz Private Boarding Establishment; well-aired beds;
bring your own straw. Excellent cuisine. _No_ garage."

This is the sort of remark which, as you go the rounds of the mess
tables, you have to pretend you have not heard: "The officer wants to
know if you have all got plenty of potatoes. Every man stand up and say
'I have';" and, to demonstrate the _camaraderie_ which exists in the
hard circumstances of military life, "George, lend me your slice of
bacon to clean my knife with." The most moving reply I have personally
received came from one of the less-educated section. I asked to what
company he was attached, and he didn't know. "Who is your captain?" I
said. "'Im with the scuppered 'at," was the descriptive reply. Captain
Herne has since lectured his gang on the rudiments of military
discipline, first, however, replenishing his neglected equipment.

And now let us turn from the domestic aspect to the infantry training,
and let me tell you all about outposts, their duty and their manner of
performing it. Outpost companies, it must be remembered, do their work
at night. I don't know, Charles, whether you have ever sat under a hedge
for hours on end in the dark, waiting the approach of the enemy. It must
be bad enough in real warfare, where there is a chance of his turning
up; but in practice it is worse, for there is the certainty that he
_must_ turn up. He left the camp an hour before you did yourself, and,
if he does succeed in getting through your lines, he'll never let you
hear the last of it.

Now you must rememb