like book and
his green-baize-covered table, was a familiar figure. So, too, was the
tailor who had been entrusted with the task of fitting us out with our
uniforms. He, poor man, was soon in trouble. The stock sizes could be
secured, but stock sizes were at a discount with the majority of the
men who first joined up. They wanted outside sizes, and very
considerable outside sizes, too, for the average height was a little
over six feet, and the chest measurements in proportion.

Still, we recognized that these things had to be, and we kept on with
a smile and a joke for everything. Perhaps we had a pair of army
trousers and a sports-coat. Perhaps we had a pair of puttees, and the
rest of the costume was our own. It didn't matter. It was good enough
to parade in off the Embankment Gardens. It was good enough to route
march in through the London streets. And the traffic was always
stopped for us when we came home up the Strand, and proceeded down the
steps by the side of "the Coal Hole" to the "dismiss." Rude things
might be said to us by the crowd, but there was a warm spot in their
hearts for us. We just carried on.

Bit by bit we were provided with our uniforms, and we began to fancy
ourselves as the real thing. We began to make new friends, and we were
drawn closer to those we knew. We came from all over the world. At the
call men had come home from the Far East and the Far West. A man who
had gone up the Yukon with Frank Slavin, the boxer; another who had
been sealing round Alaska; trappers from the Canadians woods; railway
engineers from the Argentine; planters from Ceylon; big-game hunters
from Central Africa; others from China, Japan, the Malay States,
India, Egypt--these were just a few of the Battalion who were ready
and eager to shoulder a rifle, and do their bit as just common or
garden Tommies. The thought of taking a commission did not enter our
minds at the start. Every man was eager to get on with the work, with
but a dim thought of what it was going to be like, but worrying not a
bit about the future.

In a few weeks the Battalion had learnt how to form fours, to wheel,
and to maintain a uniformity of step. Every man was desperately keen;
to be late for parade was a great big sin. And this despite the fact
that every man had to come into London from all parts of the suburbs,
and farther out than that in many instances, by train (paying his own
fare) every morning.

So the time went on. Then came the n