parade-ground, under the warm September sun, similar squads are being
pounded into shape. They have no uniforms yet: even their instructors
wear bowler hats or cloth caps. Some of the faces under the brims of
these hats are not too prosperous. The junior officers are drilling
squads too. They are a little shaky in what an actor would call their
"patter," and they are inclined to lay stress on the wrong syllables;
but they move their squads about somehow. Their seniors are dotted
about the square, vigilant and helpful--here prompting a rusty
sergeant instructor, there unravelling a squad which, in a spirited
but misguided endeavour to obey an impossible order from Second
Lieutenant Bobby Little, has wound itself up into a formation closely
resembling the third figure of the Lancers.

Over there, by the officers' mess, stands the Colonel. He is in
uniform, with a streak of parti-coloured ribbon running across
above his left-hand breast-pocket. He is pleased to call himself a
"dug-out." A fortnight ago he was fishing in the Garry, his fighting
days avowedly behind him, and only the Special Reserve between him and
_embonpoint_. Now he finds himself pitchforked back into the Active
List, at the head of a battalion eleven hundred strong.

He surveys the scene. Well, his officers are all right. The Second
in Command has seen almost as much service as himself. Of the four
company commanders, two have been commandeered while home on leave
from India, and the other two have practised the art of war in company
with brother Boer. Of the rest, there are three subalterns from the
Second Battalion--left behind, to their unspeakable woe--and four from
the O.T.C. The juniors are very junior, but keen as mustard.

But the men! Is it possible? Can that awkward, shy, self-conscious