history of his regiment and to _know_
that his is absolutely the best in the whole army. In a
surprisingly short time they get so they swear by their own
regiment and by their officers, and they protest bitterly at a
transfer.

Personally I didn't care a rap. I had early made up my mind that I
was a very small pebble on the beach and that it was up to me to
obey orders and keep my mouth shut.

On June 17, some eighteen hundred of us were moved down to
Southampton and put aboard the transport for Havre. The next day we
were in France, at Harfleur, the central training camp outside
Havre.

We were supposed to undergo an intensive training at Harfleur in
the various forms of gas and protection from it, barbed wire and
methods of construction of entanglements, musketry, bombing, and
bayonet fighting.

Harfleur was a miserable place. They refused to let us go in town
after drill. Also I managed to let myself in for something that
would have kept me in camp if town leave had been allowed.

The first day there was a call for a volunteer for musketry
instructor. I had qualified and jumped at it. When I reported, an
old Scotch sergeant told me to go to the quartermaster for
equipment. I said I already had full equipment. Whereupon the
sergeant laughed a rumbling Scotch laugh and told me I had to go
into kilts, as I was assigned to a Highland contingent.

I protested with violence and enthusiasm, but it didn't do any
good. They gave me a dinky little pleated petticoat, and when I
demanded breeks to wear underneath, I got the merry ha ha. Breeks
on a Scotchman? Never!

Well, I got into the fool things, and I felt as though I was naked
from ankle to wishbone. I couldn't get used to the outfit. I am
naturally a modest man. Besides, my architecture was never intended
for bare-leg effects. I have no dimples in my knees.

So I began an immediate campaign for transfer back to the Surreys.
I got it at the end of ten days, and with it came a hurry call from
somewhere at the front for more troops.

CHAPTER II

GOING IN

The excitement of getting away from camp and the knowledge that we
were soon to get into the thick of the big game pleased most of us.
We were glad to go. At least we thought so.

Two hundred of us were loaded into side-door Pullmans, forty to the
car. It was a kind of sardine or Boston Elevated effect, and by the
time we reached Rouen, twenty-four hours later, we had kinks in our
legs and corns o