You can find a certain humour in war if you look for it, though war is not amusing, and life at home has many more entertaining incidents in it than life at the front. One officer of The Royals fell sound asleep in a trench during the climax of a terrific bombardment, and awoke to find himself alone among the dead. (He makes us laugh when he tells the story, but at the time it cannot have been just very humorous.) He pushed on after the retreating army, and though--owing to the mistake of an officer at a cross-roads who stood saying, 'Third division to the right, So-and-so division to the left,' when it should have been the other way about--he lost his way, he found the battalion a fortnight later. Two others came in sight of the last bridge standing on one river just as the explosive was about to be detonated, and maintain that, running furiously toward the bridge, they persuaded the engineer in charge to postpone the fatal moment by brandishing a large loaf, rarest of all articles on the heels of a retreating army. Another who had been sent on ahead to find a billet in a chateau saw a beautiful bathroom, and was preparing to make use of a priceless opportunity when he found that the enemy was upon him, and fled in haste. The transport officer, peering round the corner of a house, saw his beloved transport which he had gathered and cherished until it was reputed the best in the army, go up in matchwood and iron splinters. One subaltern, finding himself on the ground, discovered to his horror that he had a hole in his chest, but struggled gamely on, now walking, now stealing a ride on a limber--just catching the last train of all--and finally arriving in England with no other articles of kit or clothing but a suit of pink pyjamas and a single eyeglass. At Meaux the steeples of Paris were in sight; but the hour had struck, and The Royals at last wheeled to pursue. III _At the Nose of the Salient_ The battalion had come through much since then, on the Marne and the Aisne and the Lys, and in trench warfare from Hooge to Neuve Chapelle. Here is a picture of a day's fighting from the diary of an eyewitness--a bald note of facts. It refers to 25th September 1915:--