Sometimes colonels would
say, "That's a long lecture." But I urged them to take my word for it
and to let the thing go ahead, and if I saw I was boring the men I
would stop. So the lecture would be announced. I suppose I must have
given it to something like twenty thousand men. I would arrive at the
battalion headquarters in the afternoon, have dinner with the C.O. and
Adjutant in their billet, and then walk over to some pleasant field on
which a thousand men were drawn up in line, presenting a most proper
military appearance. The sun would be setting behind the trees which
skirted the parade ground, and, after telling the Colonel and (p. 258)
other officers to keep in the background, I would go over in front
of the battalion and tell them that the Colonel had handed the parade
over to me, and that they were to break ranks and sit on the ground as
close as possible. At once military stiffness was dispelled, and amid
much laughter the men would crowd around and squat on the ground
tightly packed together. Imagine what a picture that was. Splendid
stalwart young men they were, hundreds and hundreds of them, with
healthy merry faces, and behind them in the distance the green trees
and the sunset. Of course smoking was allowed, and I generally had
some boxes of cigarettes to pass round. Then I would tell them of our
trip to Rome and of my following out the injunction of making the most
of a fortnight's leave by turning it into three weeks; of my puzzling
the R.T.O. in Paris by asking for transportation to Rome via
Marseilles, as we had abandoned the idea of travelling via Calcutta on
account of the submarine menace; of my being unable to enter the
Casino at Monte Carlo because officers were not admitted in uniform,
and the only mufti I had brought with me was my pyjamas which I had
left at the hotel; of the two casualties in the Paris barrage; of the
time I gave C.B. to "Yorky" when I saw he had partaken too freely of
coffee, and of the delightful memories of Italy which we had brought
back with us. The talk was not all humorous. I managed to get in many
little sermons between the lines, or as I put it, "the lecture was
impregnated with the poison of morality." Men assimilated that poison
more readily when handed out to them in such doses. Then the sun would
set and the evening shadows lengthen, and finally the stars would come
out over the scene and the mass of men before me would merge into one
great blur, which sent