ight throat. Then the P.P.s, unbeaten, marched out, leaving the
position to their relief, a battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps.
Corporal Christy, the bear-hunter, had his "luck with him." He had not
even a scratch.

Such is the story of a hard fight by one battalion in the kind of warfare
waged in Europe these days, a story only partially told; a story to
make a book. All the praise that the P.P.s, millionaire or labourer,
scapegrace or respectable pillar of society, ask is that they are worthy
of fighting side by side with Mr. Thomas Atkins, regular. At best, one
poor, little, finite mind only observes through a rift in the black smoke
and yellow smoke of high explosives and the clouds of dust and
military secrecy something of what has happened many times in a
small section of that long line from Switzerland to the North Sea.

Leaning against the wall in a corner of the dining-room of the French
chateau were the P.P.s colours. Major Niven took off the wrapper in
order that I might see the flag with the initials of the battalion which
Princess Patricia embroidered with her own hands. There is room,
one repeats, for a little sentiment and a little emotion, too, between
Halifax and Vancouver.

"Of course we could not take our colours into action," said Niven.
"They would have been torn into tatters or buried in a shell-crater. But
we've always kept them up at battalion headquarters. I believe we are
the only battalion that has. We promised the Princess that we would."

In her honour, an old custom has been renewed in France: knights
are fighting in the name of a fair lady.

XXV
Many Pictures

A single incident, an impression photographic in its swiftness, a
chance remark, may be more illuminating than a day's experiences.
One does not need to go to the front for them. Sometimes they come
to the gateway of our chateau. They are pages at random out of a
library of overwhelming information.

One of the aviation grounds is not far away. Look skyward at almost
any hour of the day and you will see a plane, its propeller a roar or a
hum according to its altitude. Sometimes it is circling in practice;
again, it is off to the front. At break of day the planes appear; in the
gloaming they return to roost.

If an aviator has leave for two or three days in summer he starts in
the late afternoon, flashing over that streak of Channel in half an
hour, and may be at home for dinner without getting any dust on h