ption, but the Battalion saw few of them more. These men--W.
Jones, Mort, Woods, Stanton, Fielding, Lyth, Bracken, Houghton, Dermody,
Parkinson, Barber--were the salt of the Regiment. During the long years
when Territorial service had been irksome and unfashionable, they made
it succeed. With a few old hands like Regimental Quartermaster-Sergeant
Ogden, who elected to remain with the unit, they had borne the burden of
the trenches manfully, and never grumbled as to their status while
commissions were showered on men at home whose claims, compared with
theirs, were modest.

[Illustration: _Back Row_--Lieut. T.F. Brown, Lieut. N.H.P. Whitley,
Lieut. J.H. Thorpe, Lieut. G.S. Lockwood.

_Front Row_--Capt. R.V. Rylands, Capt. H. Smedley.]

On the 24th March 1916 the Brigade left Shallufa, and on the morning of
the 25th marched into Suez New Camp to undergo training. The move was
welcome, as it was imagined to lead to a departure for a more active
theatre of war.

The type of training adopted at Suez derived its inspiration from the
French Army, whose text-books of 1916 taught that close order drill and
punctilious discipline, tempered by games and sports, were ideal means
of reviving the all-important offensive spirit in units.

The four and a half weeks spent by the Battalion at Suez were therefore
crowded with field days and ceremonial drill. On the 21th May there was
a striking review of the whole Division, followed by a march past in
blinding dust. Days of this type, however, even if they mean rising at
four in the morning and include Brigade bathes in the warm, blue Gulf of
Suez, followed by breakfast on a sun-baked shore, are the same all the
world over. They are not worth discussing in writing of the fateful time
which witnessed the great German attack upon Verdun and Fort Douaumont.

At all events, Suez saw the reconstruction of the Manchester Territorial
units completed. The sense of vitality, without which no army can take
the offensive, was fully restored. We had spirited sham fights with
another battalion of the Manchesters for the possession of "Tower 16," a
solitary landmark on the caravan track to Cairo, after the manner of the
pre-War era. The _Sentry_ blossomed as the first English paper of the
country. Two thousand copies used to be sold at Suez alone. Our men
competed for Colonel Canning's football cup and played a great match
with the crew of the _Ben-my-Chree_, the famous seaplane carrier, sunk
by