“Rather!--Sickening, hanging about round here.” “You’ll find war’s mostly hanging about round somewhere, with an occasional scrap thrown in, and overmany shells all the time. You get used to them, of course, but you’ll come to be grateful to get away from the sound of them for a bit.” “Everybody all right at home?” asked Noel. “Suppose you got a sight of them!” “Yes, I got all the sight of them I could cram into the time. They were all first rate, but full of anxieties for all of us. I suppose you write now and again.” “Oh, occasionally. But you see there’s really been nothing to tell them so far.” “You can’t write often enough to please your mothers. They’re feeling it sorely.” The days dragged on and found them still ‘fooling about,’ as Noel put it,--footer, route-marches, parades, alarm-parades, church-parades, an occasional sudden order to ‘stand-by’ in case of need, now and again a bit of musketry-drill, and some educational manœuvering and trench-digging. But it was all very far short of what the fire-eating newcomers had looked forward to, and strung themselves up to, and felt very much let down through the lack of. Then they heard the King was coming to have a look at them, and they were set to scraping a foot or so of the surface mud off the road so that his motor should be able to get through somehow. And they did it merrily enough. It was a change anyway and all in the day’s work. But, said Noel, “Hanged if I ever expected to get down to road-scraping. I feel like one of the old duffers that pretend to sweep the roads at home, with W.U.C. in brass letters on their caps, and mouch about most of the time with their brooms over their shoulders.” The King duly came and went, which passed one day, and they had more drills, new double-company drills, more route-marches, more parades, and came at last to doubt if any real fighting was to the fore at all. The news of Admiral Sturdee’s sinking of the German Fleet off the Falklands cheered them up, and later on came word of the bombardment of Scarborough and Whitby, and they were inclined to think that would help Kitchener in his recruiting. It rained most days and they got accustomed to the constant living in wet clothes. And rumour, as of old, had fine times of it--a fresh ’cert’ each day, but the most persistent and long-lived that they were presently to go to Egypt;--at which Master Noel growled, “Rotten luck!” They were constantly ‘standing-by,’ hopeful that it meant business at last, but the order was always cancelled and they stayed where they were. Then, right in the middle of a game of footer, peremptory orders came and they were really off at last, full of fight and jubilant at the prospect of fresh fame for the Battalion in the near future. And presently Noel and Gregor found themselves in a real fighting-trench, with mud and water almost up to their knees, and the roaring of big guns and the rattle of musketry somewhere on in front.