for one moment the
steady progress of the Embarkation of the Army. It was like a huge,
slow-moving machine; there was a hint of the inexorable in its
exactitude. Nothing had been forgotten--not even eggs for the Officers'
breakfast in the Captain's cabin.

Meanwhile the other ships were filling up. By midday they began to slide
down the Solent, and guesses were being freely exchanged about the
destination of the little flotilla. Some said Boulogne, others Calais;
but the general opinion was Havre, though nobody knew for certain, for
the Captain of the ship had not yet opened his sealed orders. The
transports crept slowly along the coast of the Isle of Wight, but it was
not until evening that the business of crossing the Channel was begun in
earnest.

The day had been lovely, and Officers and men had spent it mostly in
sleeping and smoking upon the deck. Spirits had risen as the day grew
older. For at dawn the cheeriest optimist is a pessimist, while at
midday pessimists become optimists. In the early morning the German Army
had been invincible. At lunch the Battalion was going to Berlin, on the
biggest holiday of its long life!

The Subaltern, still suffering from the after-effects of inoculation
against enteric, which had been unfortunately augmented by a premature
indulgence in fruit, and by the inability to rest during the rush of
mobilisation, did not spend a very happy night. The men fared even
worse, for the smell of hot, cramped horses, steaming up from the lower
deck, was almost unbearable. But their troubles were soon over, for by
seven o'clock the boat was gliding through the crowded docks of Havre.

Naturally most of the Mess had been in France before, but to Tommy it
was a world undiscovered. The first impression made on the men was
created by a huge negro working on the docks. He was greeted with roars
of laughter, and cries of, "Hallo, Jack Johnson!" The red trousers of
the French sentries, too, created a tremendous sensation. At length the
right landing-stage was reached. Equipments were thrown on, and the
Battalion was paraded on the dock.

The march through the cobbled streets of Havre rapidly developed into a
fiasco. This was one of the first, if not the very first, landing of
British Troops in France, and to the French it was a novelty, calling
for a tremendous display of open-armed welcome. Children rushed from the
houses, and fell upon the men crying for "souvenirs." Ladies pursued
them with b