ers from the
County houses.

Extended manoeuvres were impracticable in this well-fenced
agricultural area, so the training embraced much route-marching, and
barrack-square work, musketry, signalling, visual training, etc.
There were several trying marches in the scorching May-June weather,
to Clive's native district, Moreton-Say and Market Drayton, to Wem and
Hodnet, and to the beautiful scenery of Hawkstone Park, and Iscoyd
Hall. Football, cricket, hockey, golf and cross-country running
provided healthy recreation, while excursions to old-world "Sleepy
Chester," to Shrewsbury and into Wales were popular week-ends.

[Illustration: A PEACEFUL BIVOUAC--SALISBURY PLAIN.]

[Illustration: RECRUITING MARCH AT CODFORD.
_To face page 22._]

In the third week of June, 1915, the 17th H.L.I. changed quarters from
the flat stifling district of Prees-Heath to the breezy upland valley
of Wensleydale, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. There is hardly a
level acre in the district, but this was a welcome change. Many an
enjoyable journey was made, in the intervals of Brigade Training,
northward to lonely Swaledale, south to Coverdale, across the Valley
of the Yore, to the prominent peak of Penhill, or to the beautiful
Aysgarth Falls.

The Infantry Brigade, the 97th, had the 95th and the South Irish Horse
as comrades for the training round Leyburn and Middleham, and Bellerby
Moors; and some pleasant friendships were formed with the Warwickshire
and Gloucestershire lads, and with the "foine foightin' bhoys" from
Cork and Tipperary.

On the 27th of July tents were shifted to Totley Rifle Ranges in
Derbyshire, where the preliminary Musketry Course was fired by the
Battalion during the next fortnight, with most creditable results. The
men made themselves great favourites in Totley and Dore, and at
Sheffield, where they received a very hospitable welcome at all times,
and especially on the occasion of a memorable route march through that
city on 9th August. The Battalion was given an enthusiastic send-off
at Dore and Beauchief Stations on 10th August, when entraining for
Salisbury Plain, the scene of their next training ground.

When the Seventeenth steamed into the station at Codford St. Mary, on
11th August, and saw the occasional houses peeping through the tall
trees, it was the thought that, after the bustle and stir of Totley,
they had indeed become soldiers in earnest. The Camp Warden
strengthened this belief with his