"Long may the colonel with us bide,
His shadow ne'er grow thinner.
(It would, though, if he ever tried
Some Army stew for dinner.)"

Billeting has gained for the soldier many friends, and towns that have
become accustomed to his presence look sadly forward to the day when
he will leave them for the front, where no kind landlady will be at
hand to transform raw beef and potatoes into beef pudding or potato
pie. The working classes in particular view the future with misgiving.
The bond of sympathy between soldier and workers is stronger than that
between soldier and any other class of citizen. The houses and manners
of the well-to-do daunt most Tommies. "In their houses we feel out
of it somehow," they say. "There's nothin' we can talk about with the
swells, and 'arf the time they be askin' us about things that's no
concern of theirs at all."

Most toilers who have no friends or relations preparing for war
have kinsmen already in the trenches--or on the roll of honour. And
feelings stronger than those of friendship now unite thousands of
soldiers to the young girls of the houses in which they are billeted.
For even in the modern age, that now seems to voice the ultimate
expression of man's culture and advance in terrorism and destruction,
love and war, vital as the passion of ancient story, go hand in hand
up to the trenches and the threat of death.




CHAPTER II