He stooped and picked up a lump of white, chalky earth from the roadside, scrawled with it on the huge boiler-end that rested on the broken wall, and left the written words to finish the spoken sentence. Jock read, and later the remains of the Regiment read as they moved off past the aching desolation of the silent factory, down the shell-torn road, across the war-swept ruins of a whole country-side. A few scowled at the thoughts the words raised, the most grinned and passed rough jests; but to all those men in the thinned ranks, their dead behind them, the scenes of ruin before them, the words bit, and bit deep. They ran: But it's Bisness As Usual --AT HOME. A HYMN OF HATE '_The troops continue in excellent spirits._'--EXTRACT FROM OFFICIAL DESPATCH. To appreciate properly, from the Army's point of view, the humour of this story, it must always be remembered that the regiment concerned is an English one--entirely and emphatically English, and indeed almost entirely East End Cockney. It is true that the British Army on active service has a sense of humour peculiarly its own, and respectable civilians have been known, when jests were retailed with the greatest gusto by soldier raconteurs, to shudder and fail utterly to understand that there could be any humour in a tale so mixed up with the grim and ghastly business of killing and being killed. A biggish battle had died out about a week before in the series of spasmodic struggles of diminishing fury that have characterised most of the battles on the Western Front, when the Tower Bridge Foot found themselves in occupation of a portion of the forward line which was only separated from the German trench by a distance varying from forty to one hundred yards. Such close proximity usually results in an interchange of compliments between the two sides, either by speech, or by medium of a board with messages written on it--the board being reserved usually for the strokes of wit most likely to sting, and therefore best worth conveying to the greatest possible number of the enemy. The 'Towers' were hardly installed in their new position when a voice came from the German parapet, 'Hello, Tower Bridge Foot! Pleased to meet you again.' The Englishmen were too accustomed to it to be surprised by this uncannily prompt recognition by the enemy of a newly relieving regiment of which they had not seen so much as a cap top. 'Hullo, Boshy,' retorted one of the Towers. 'You're makin' a mistake this time. We ain't the Tower Bridges. We're the Kamchatka 'Ighlanders.' 'An' you're a liar if you says you're pleased to meet us again,' put in another. 'If you've met us afore I lay you was too dash sorry for it to want to meet us again.' 'Oh, we know who you are all right,' replied the voice. 'And we know you've just relieved the Fifth Blankshires; and what's more, we know who's going to relieve you, and when.'