I call Mother too. It is to her that I have dedicated this book.

After my delightful few days of leave, things moved fast. I was
back in Dover just two days when I, with two hundred other men, was
sent to Winchester. Here we were notified that we were transferred
to the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment.

This news brought a wild howl from the men. They wanted to stop
with the Fusiliers. It is part of the British system that every man
is taught the traditions and history of his regiment and to _know_
that his is absolutely the best in the whole army. In a
surprisingly short time they get so they swear by their own
regiment and by their officers, and they protest bitterly at a
transfer.

Personally I didn't care a rap. I had early made up my mind that I
was a very small pebble on the beach and that it was up to me to
obey orders and keep my mouth shut.

On June 17, some eighteen hundred of us were moved down to
Southampton and put aboard the transport for Havre. The next day we
were in France, at Harfleur, the central training camp outside
Havre.

We were supposed to undergo an intensive training at Harfleur in
the various forms of gas and protection from it, barbed wire and
methods of construction of entanglements, musketry, bombing, and
bayonet fighting.

Harfleur was a miserable place. They refused to let us go in town