ies all his worldly goods with him all the
time. He hates to hike. But he has to.

I remember very vividly that first day. The temperature was around
90 deg., and some fool officers had arranged that we start at one,--the
very worst time of the day. The roads so near the front were
pulverized, and the dust rose in dense clouds. The long straight
lines of poplars beside the road were gray with it, and the heat
waves shimmered up from the fields.

Before we had gone five miles the men began to wilt. Right away I
had some more of the joys of being a corporal brought home to me.
I was already touched with trench fever and was away under par.
That didn't make any difference.

On the march, when the men begin to weaken, an officer is sure to
trot up and say:

"Corporal Holmes, just carry this man's rifle," or "Corporal
Collins, take that man's pack. He's jolly well done."

Seemingly the corporal never is supposed to be jolly well done. If
one complained, his officer would look at him with astounded
reproach and say:

"Why, Corporal. We cawn't have this, you know! You are a
Non-commissioned Officer, and you must set an example. You must,
rahly."

When we finally hit the town where our billets were, we found our
company quartered in an old barn. It was dirty, and there was a
pigpen at one end,--very smelly in the August heat. We flopped in
the ancient filth. The cooties were very active, as we were
drenched with sweat and hadn't had a bath since heavens knew when.
We had had about ten minutes' rest and were thinking about getting
out of the harness when up came Mad Harry, one of our "leftenants",
and ordered us out for foot inspection.

I don't want to say anything unfair about this man. He is dead now.
I saw him die. He was brave. He knew his job all right, but he was
a fine example of what an officer ought not to be. The only reason
I speak of him is because I want to say something about officers in
general.

This Mad Harry,--I do not give his surname for obvious
reasons,--was the son of one of the richest-new-rich-merchant
families in England. He was very highly educated, had, I take it,
spent the most of his life with the classics. He was long and thin
and sallow and fish-eyed. He spoke in a low colorless monotone,
absolutely without any inflection whatever. The men thought he was
balmy. Hence the nickname Mad Harry.

Mad Harry was a fiend for walking. And at the end of a twenty-mile
hike in heavy marching o