Mouquet Farm was taken a fortnight later in a big combined advance of
British and Canadians. The Farm itself held out many hours after the
line had passed it, and was finally seized by a pioneer battalion,
working behind our lines.




CHAPTER XXV

ON LEAVE TO A NEW ENGLAND

_Back in France._


It was after seven weeks of very heavy fighting. Even those whose duty
took them rarely up amongst the shells were almost worn out with the
prolonged strain. Those who had been fighting their turns up in the
powdered trenches came out from time to time tired well nigh to death in
body, mind and soul. The battle of the Somme still grumbled night and
day behind them. But for those who emerged a certain amount of leave was
opened.

It was like a plunge into forgotten days. War seemed to end at the
French quayside. Staff officers, brigadier-generals, captains, privates
and lance-corporals--they were all just Englishmen off to their homes.
They jostled one another up the gangway--I never heard a rough word in
that dense crowd. They lay side by side outside the saloon of the
Channel turbine steamer. A corporal with his head half in the doorway,