down my rifle, and in frenzied haste consulted a railway timetable. A slow train was due to leave our town at five minutes to seven. I arranged my papers, made a brief review of matters which would come before me later, and with muddy boots and heavy heart I arrived at the station at seven minutes to seven and took the slow train for London.

When I told the story of my adventures at dinner a soldier friend remarked: "You've been more than a little lucky in getting away at all. I was very unlucky when I applied—"

But his story was a long one, and I have forgotten it.

CHAPTER IV

Officers and Rifles

As I have said, I have learned among other things to obey my officers and depend upon my rifle. At first the junior officers appeared to me only as immaculate young men in tailor-made tunics and well-creased trousers, wearing swords and wrist-watches, and full of a healthy belief in their own importance. My mates are apt to consider them as being somewhat vain, and no Tommy dares fail to salute the young commissioned officers when he meets them out with their young ladies on the public streets. For myself, I have a great respect for them and their work; day and night they are at their toil; when parade comes to an end, and the battalion is dismissed for the day, the officers, who have done ten or twelve hours' of field exercise, turn to their desks and company accounts, and time and again the Last Post sees them busy over ledgers, pamphlets, and plans.

Accurate and precise in every detail, they know the outs and ins of platoon and company drill, and can handle scores and hundreds of men with the ease and despatch of artists born to their work. Where have these officers, fresh youngsters with budding moustaches and white, delicate hands, learned all about frontage, file, flank, and formation, alignment, echelon, incline, and interval? Words of direction and command come so readily from their lips that I was almost tempted to believe that they had learned as easily as they taught, that their skill in giving orders could only be equalled by the ease with which I supposed they had mastered the details of their work. Later I came to know of the difficulty that confronts the young men, raw from the Officers' Training Corps, when they take up their preliminary duties as commanders of trained soldiers. No "rooky" fresh to the ranks is the butt of so many jokes and such biting sarcasm as the young officer is subjected to when he takes his place as a leader of men.

Soon after my arrival in our town a score of young lieutenants came to our parade ground, accompanied by two commanders, a keen-eyed adjutant, brisk as a bell, and a white-haired colonel with very thin legs, and putties which seemed to have been glued on to his shins. The young gentlemen were destined for various regiments, and most of them were fresh and spotless in their new uniforms. Some wore Glengarry bonnets, kilts, and sporrans, some the black ribbons of Wales; one, whose hat-badge proclaimed the Dublin Fusilier, was conspicuous by the eyeglass he wore, and others were still arrayed in civilian garb, the uniform of city and office life. Several units of my battalion were taken off to drill in company with the strange officers. I was one of the chosen.

The young men took us in hand, acting in turn as corporals, platoon sergeants, and company commanders. The gentleman with the eyeglass had charge of my platoon, and from the start he cast surreptitious glances at a little red brochure which he held in his hand, and mumbled words as if trying to commit something to memory.

"Get to your places," the adjutant yelled to the officers. "Hurry up! Don't stand there gaping as if you're going to snap at flies. We've got to do some work. There's no hay for those who don't work. Come on, Weary, and drill your men; you with the eyeglass, I mean! I want you to put the company through some close column movements."

The man with the eyeglass took up his position, and issued some order, but his voice was so low that the men nearest him could not hear the command.

"Shout!" yelled the adjutant. "Don't mumble like a flapper who has just got her first kiss. It's not allowed on parade."

The order was repeated, and the voice raised a little.

"Louder, louder!" yelled the adjutant. Then with fine irony: "These men are very interested in what you've got to tell them.... I don't think."

Eyeglass essayed another attempt, but stopped in the midst of his words, frozen into mute helplessness by the look of the adjutant.

"For heaven's sake, try and speak up," the adjutant said. "If you don't talk like a man, these fellows won't salute you when they meet you in the street with your young lady. On second thoughts, you had better go back and take up the job of platoon sergeant. Come on, Glengarry, and try and trumpet an order."

Glengarry, so-called from his bonnet, a sturdy youth with sloping shoulders, took up his post nervously.

"A close column forming column of fours," he cried in a shrill treble, quoting the cautionary part of his command. "Advance in fours from the right; form fours—right!"

"Form fours—where?" roared the adjutant.

"Left," came the answer.

"Left, your grandmother! You were right at first. Did you not know that you were right?... Where's Eyeglass, the platoon sergeant, now? Who's pinched him?"

This unfortunate officer had dropped his eyeglass, and was now groping for it on the muddy ground, one of my mates helping him in the search.

Other officers took up the job of company commander in turn, and all suffered. One, who was a dapper little fellow, speedily earned the nickname of "Tailor's Dummy;" another, when giving a platoon the wrong direction in dressing, was told to be careful, and not shove the regiment over. A third, a Welshman, with the black ribbons, got angry with a section for some slight mistake made by two of its number, and was told to be careful and not annoy the men. He had only got them on appro'.

Spick and span in their new uniforms, they came to drill daily on our parade ground. Slowly the change took place. They were "rookies" no longer, and the adjutant's sarcasm was a thing of the past. Commands were pronounced distinctly and firmly; the officers were trained men, ready to lead a company of soldiers anywhere and to do anything.

No man who has trained with the new armies can be lacking in respect for the indefatigable N.C.O., upon whom the brunt of the work has fallen. With picturesque scorn and sarcasm he has formed huge armies out of the rawest of raw material, and all in a space of less than half a year. His methods are sometimes strange and his temper short; yet he achieves his end in the shortest time possible. He is for ever correcting the same mistakes and rebuking the same stupidity, and the wonder is, not that he loses his temper, but that he should ever be able to preserve it. He understands men, and approaches them in an idiom that is likely to produce the best results.

"Every man of you has friends of some sort," said the musketry instructor, as we formed up in front of him on the parade ground, gripping with nervous eagerness the rifles which had just been served out from the quartermaster's stores. We were recruits, raw "rookies," green to the grind, and chafing under discipline. "And some sort of friends it would be as well as if you never met them," the instructor continued. "They'd play you false the minute they'd get your back turned. But you've a