even an Englishman will learn if you do not hustle him but give him a year
or two to find by experience that care should sometimes be taken, all get
to earth. The guns fire; the neighbourhood heaves and readjusts itself, and
a man may then come out again. By the time, however, he has collected his
senses and his materials there is another "Stand clear!" and back he must
go to earth. This is what is technically known as Rest.

It was not good enough for one of the battalion cooks. No man can do
justice to a mess of pottage by lying on his belly at a distance and
frowning at it. After many movements to and fro, he eventually said be
damned to guns and "Stand clears;" stood on the top of his cooker (there
was nowhere else to stand), and, holding a dixie lid in his hand and
bestowing on the contents of the dixie that encouraging smile without which
no stew can stew, defied all the artillery of the B.E.F. to do its worst.
It did.

The cook recovered to find himself among his dixies, frizzling pleasantly
and browning nicely in certain parts. Even so, professional interests
over-came any feeling of personal injury. Rising majestically, he stepped
down and advanced upon the nearest gun crew. "Now you've done it, you
blighters!" he shouted, waving an angry fist at them. "You've been and gone
and blown all the pork out of the beans."

The same man went on holiday to the neighbouring town, which is in reality
an ordinarily dull and dirty provincial place, but to the tired warrior is
a haven of rest and a paradise of gaiety and good things. Here he came into
contact with the local A.P.M. in the following way. The latter was in his
office after lunch, brooding no doubt, when in came a French policeman
greatly excited in French. There was, it appeared, promise of a commotion
at the Hotel de Ville. A British soldier had got mixed up in the queue of