service
to the battalions. Moreover, when the men arrived they found tea waiting
for them already brewed. Apparently the hour of the men's arrival had
been timed to such a nicety that the meal was just ready for them.
Assuming the truth of Napoleon's maxim about an army marching on its
belly, one can easily see from these pages that if Staff work had in any
way failed, or if the Army Service Corps had broken down, the Great
Retreat would have ended in disaster. It was these faultless
arrangements of the Army Service Corps that served to keep the sorely
tried army at any rate on its legs.

A fire had been lighted, and, grateful for its warmth, the five Officers
of the Company were soon clustering round it, sipping out of their mess
tins filled with strong, sweet tea, without milk but very strongly
flavoured with rum. Soon the worries and painful memories of the day
were dispelled. A feeling almost of contentment stole over them. There
is something so particularly adventurous and at the same time soothing
about a camp fire. They had all read books at school full of camp fires
and fighting and prairies, and they had all more or less envied such a
life. Here it was. But the adventure part of it was so minute, and the
drudgery and nerve strain so great that the most adventurous soul among
them had long since admitted that "if _this_ was Active Service, it was
not the life for him!"

CHAPTER XIII

HEAT AND DUST

The Subaltern did not get to sleep until twelve, and the Regiment made
another start as early as half-past two. It seemed to him that when
necessity drives there is no limit to the nerve force that we have in
us! They marched some miles in a westerly direction before they rejoined
the main road southwards.

To describe in detail the sufferings of that day would be to repeat
almost word for word some of the preceding paragraphs. It was just as
hot as usual, just as dusty as usual. An order had come from somewhere
that there was to be no looting. Men were to be forbidden to snatch an
apple from a fruit-strewn orchard, or an egg from a deserted barn! The
owners had already fled from their homes, and here Mr. Thomas Atkins was
solemnly asked to go hungry and thirsty and to relieve the enemy of one
of his greatest difficulties--feeding himself. The Platoon having halted
for the usual hourly halt outside an orchard, some of the men broke into
it and began to throw apples over the hedge to the others. Seeing th