y were English lads from every country;
Scots, Irish, Welsh, of every regiment; Australians, New-Zealanders,
South Africans, Canadians, West Indian negroes of the Garrison
Artillery; Sikhs, Pathans, and Dogras of the Indian Cavalry. Some of
them had been sick and there was a greenish pallor on their faces. Most
of them were deeply tanned. Many of them stepped on the quayside of
France for the first time after months of training, and I could tell
those, sometimes, by the furtive look they gave at the crowded scene
about them, and by a sudden glint in their eyes, a faint reflection of
the emotion that was in them, because this was another stage on their
adventure of war, and the drawbridge was down at last between them and
the enemy. That was all, just that look, and lips tightened now grimly,
and the pack hunched higher. Then they fell in by number and marched
away, with Redcaps to guard them, across the bridge, into the town
of Boulogne and beyond to the great camp near Etaples (and near the
hospital, so that German aircraft had a good argument for smashing Red
Cross huts), where some of them would wait until somebody said, "You're
wanted." They were wanted in droves as soon as the fighting began on the
first day of July.

The bun shops in Boulogne were filled with nurses, V.A.D.'s, all kinds
of girls in uniforms which glinted with shoulder-straps and buttons.
They ate large quantities of buns at odd hours of mornings and
afternoons. Flying-men and officers of all kinds waiting for trains
crowded the Folkestone Hotel and restaurants, where they spent two hours
over luncheon and three hours over dinner, drinking red wine, talking
"shop"--the shop of trench-mortar units, machine-gun sections, cavalry
squadrons, air-fighting, gas schools, and anti-gas schools. Regular
inhabitants of Boulogne, officers at the base, passed to inner rooms
with French ladies of dangerous appearance, and the transients envied
them and said: "Those fellows have all the luck! What's their secret?
How do they arrange these cushie jobs?" From open windows came the music
of gramophones. Through half-drawn curtains there were glimpses of khaki
tunics and Sam Brown belts in juxtaposition with silk blouses and
coiled hair and white arms. Opposite the Folkestone there was a park of
ambulances driven by "Scottish women," who were always on the move
from one part of the town to the other. Motor-cars came hooting with
staff-officers, all aglow in red tabs