ors in
grimy, abandoned-looking "office jackets." (No scarecrow on duty
afield in the remotest of rural districts would have been seen in the
garment which my predecessor, now F.M., Bart., and G.C.B., left
hanging up as a legacy in the apartment which he vacated in my
favour.) But--although old hands will hardly credit it and may think I
am romancing--I have seen those messengers tearing along the passages
with coat-tails flying as though mad monkeys were at their heels, when
Lord K. wanted somebody in his sanctum and had invited one of them to
take the requisite steps. If the Chief happened to desire the presence
of oneself, one did not run. Appearances had to be preserved. But one
walked rather fast.

An earlier paragraph has hinted that, owing to military authorities in
Whitehall not seeing quite eye to eye with the new Secretary of State
when he took up his appointment, he was to some small extent working
in an atmosphere of latent hostility to his measures. This state of
affairs was, however, of very short duration, and certainly did not
hamper his operations in the slightest degree; he would indeed have
made uncommonly short work of anybody whom he found to be actively
opposing him, or even to be hanging back. But the situation in the
case of G.H.Q. of the Expeditionary Force was different. It is a
matter of common knowledge--anybody who was unaware of it before the
appearance of Lord French's "_1914_" will have learnt it from that
volume--that the relations between Lord Kitchener and some of those up
at the top in connection with our troops on the Western Front were,
practically from the outset, not quite satisfactory in character.

The attitude taken up by G.H.Q. over a comparatively small matter
during the first few days is an example of this. The Secretary of
State had laid his hands upon one officer and one or two
non-commissioned officers of each battalion of the Expeditionary
Force, and had diverted these to act as drill-instructors, and so
forth, for the new formations which he proposed to create. That his
action in this should have been objected to within the bereft units
was natural enough; their officers could hardly be expected to take
the long view on the question at such a juncture. But that the higher
authorities of our little army proceeding to the front should have
taken the measure so amiss was unfortunate. And it was, moreover,
instructive, indicating as it did in somewhat striking fashion the