by ancient barns.

"There are some of your Americans," he remarked.

I had recognized them, not by their uniforms but by their type. Despite
their costumes, which were negligible, they were eloquent of college
campuses in every one of our eight and forty States, lean, thin-hipped,
alert. The persistent rains had ceased, a dazzling sunlight made that
beautiful countryside as bright as a coloured picture post-card, but a
riotous cold gale was blowing; yet all wore cotton trousers that left
their knees as bare as Highlanders' kilts. Above these some had an
sweaters, others brown khaki tunics, from which I gathered that they
belonged to the officers' training corps. They were drawn up on two
lines facing each other with fixed bayonets, a grim look on their faces
that would certainly have put any Hun to flight. Between the files stood
an unmistakable gipling sergeant with a crimson face and a bristling
little chestnut moustache, talking like a machine gun.

"Now, then, not too lidylike!--there's a Bosch in front of you! Run 'im
through! Now, then!"

The lines surged forward, out went the bayonets, first the long thrust
and then the short, and then a man's gun was seized and by a swift
backward twist of the arm he was made helpless.

"Do you feel it?" asked the officer, as he turned to me. I did.
"Up and down your spine," he added, and I nodded. "Those chaps will do,"
he said. He had been through that terrible battle of the Somme, and he
knew. So had the sergeant.