At Etaples he was allotted to the 2/9 Battalion of the Foddershires, and left to join them with about fifteen other subalterns, most of whom had never been in the line. He found the Battalion on rest in a small village about twenty miles behind M——. They belonged to one of the Divisions which had been smashed to pieces, and the battalion had suffered severely, losing most of its officers (including the Colonel) and the greater part of its effectives. The new Colonel was an ex-Regular Corporal who had obtained a commission early in the War, and by dexterity and martinet methods had risen to the rank of acting Lieutenant-Colonel. He was not a fighting soldier, but an expert trainer. He had the bullying manner of the barrack-square drill instructor, and his method of “training” was to harass every officer and man under his command from morning to night. After a week’s “rest” under this commander, Winterbourne felt nearly as tired as if he had been in the line. The subalterns who had never been under fire were exhausted and dismayed. However, it must in justice be admitted that Colonel Straker was faced with appalling difficulties, and Winterbourne would have sympathized with the man if he had not so obviously been trying to push his own professional career in the Army at the expense of every one he commanded. The old battalion was a wreck. It had four of its officers left, one of whom was the Adjutant; a few of its old N.C.O.’s and a sprinkling of men were there; mostly signallers and headquarters men. Not a single one of the Lewis Gunners remained. Two Companies had been captured, and the remainder had fought a way out with terrific losses. The gaps had been filled chiefly by raw half-trained boys of eighteen and a half, many of whom were scared stiff by the mere thought of going into the trenches. To secure an adequate number of N.C.O.’s, the Colonel had to promote nearly every man who had any experience of the War, even transport drivers who could scarcely write their names. Winterbourne had expected to go into the line at first as a supernumerary officer under instruction, and to pick up his duties by watching others and always going about with them. To his dismay, but also a certain amount of flattered vanity, he found himself immediately appointed as acting commander of B Company. But it was inevitable. Several of the new officers were mere boys, others volunteers from the Army Service Corps—perfectly competent at their own job but quite ignorant of trench warfare—and others again were “keymen” from business houses, reluctantly yielded to the “combings out” of 1917. Winterbourne had four subalterns under him, Hutchinson, Cobbold, Paine, and Rushton. They were all good fellows, but three of them had seen no service whatever and the fourth had been in Egypt only.