arrassed by indifferent health, worked at great pressure
night and day. His successor at G.H.Q. is a man of stupendous energy,
commanding ability, and great force of character, who has risen from the
ranks to the great position he now holds. By their chiefs ye shall know
them. Under such as these there was and is no room for the "slacker" at
G.H.Q. He got short shrift. There were very few of that undesirable
species at G.H.Q., and as soon as they were discovered they were sent
home. I sometimes wonder whether one could not trace, if it were worth
while (which it isn't), these ignoble slanders to their origin in the
querulous lamentations of these deported gentlemen, whence they have
percolated into Parliamentary channels. But it really isn't worth while.
The public has, I believe, taken the thing at its true valuation. In
plain speech it is "all rot."

NOTE.--The last paragraph was written before the recent changes at
G.H.Q. and at the War Office, but the reader will not need any
assistance in the identification of the two distinguished Chiefs of
Staff here referred to.--J.H.M.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] The writer's experience of the trenches is described in some detail
in Chapter VIII.

[29] _The Manual of Military Law_.

XXX

HOME AGAIN

Sykes had finished packing my kit and had succeeded with some difficulty
in re-establishing the truth of the axiom that a whole is greater than
its parts. When I contemplated my valise and its original constituents,
it seemed to me that the parts would prove greater than the whole, and I
had in despair abandoned the problem to Sykes. He succeeded, as he
always did. One of the first things that an officer's servant learns is
that, as regards the regulation Field Service allowance of luggage,
nothing succeeds like excess.

Sykes had not only stowed away my original impedimenta but had also
managed to find room for various articles of _vertu_ which had enriched
my private collection, to wit:

(1) One Bavarian bayonet of Solingen steel.

(2) Two German time-fuses with fetishistic-looking brass heads.

(3) A clip of German cartridges with the bullets villainously
reversed.

(4) A copper loving-cup--_i.e._, an empty shell-case presented to
me with a florid speech by Major S---- on behalf of the ----th
Battery of the R.F.A.

(5) An autograph copy of _The Green Curve_ bestowed on me by my
friend "Ole Luk-