Then, however, came March 28, and here our men were afforded an opportunity of getting their own back. It is with delight that we consequently read: "The old trenches were, on the whole, in surprisingly good condition, the men had ammunition and had had some sleep and food, and orders had been received that this was to be the line of resistance, and that there would be no further retirement. "It was a day of anxiety, but still a day on which our men could at last settle down to shooting down the enemy. This they did with great relish." Bald, perhaps, these details may appear to those who have judged the war from the pen pictures of the various war correspondents, but they possess the ring of real reality to those who have known what it is to be shelled day after day and night after night in the trenches, to have advanced in the face of a rain of machine-gun bullets, or to have been forced to take shelter in an all too small shell crater, when to show an inch of head or body meant death or a serious wound. +-----------------------------------------------------+ | PRESENTATION OF THE KING'S COLOUR--MAJOR-GENERAL | | SIR C.E. PEREIRA, K.C.B., C.M.G., AND HIS PRIDE IN | | THE BATTALION | +-----------------------------------------------------+ PRESENTATION OF THE KING'S COLOUR--MAJOR-GENERAL SIR C.E. PEREIRA, K.C.B., C.M.G., AND HIS PRIDE IN THE BATTALION His pride in the Battalion was expressed by Major-General C.E. Pereira, C.B., C.M.G., on the occasion of the presentation of the King's Colour at Niederaussem, Germany, on January 24, 1919. "First of all," said Major-General Pereira, "I will tell you how highly I esteem the privilege of presenting these colours to-day. "For two years," he went on, "I have had the honour to command the 2nd Division, and I have been proud of your work in the Field and out of it, and of the fine spirit which you have always shown. "These colours are given you as a mark of the magnificent service you have rendered in the campaign during the last four years. "The record of the Regiment during the whole of its service will compare with the services of any battalion in the British Army, whether in the Somme fighting, 1916, Courcelette, Vimy Ridge, and Bourlon Wood in 1917, the retirement from the Cambrai salient in March, 1918, or the recent victorious advance which culminated in the overthrow of the Germans. In all these operations, in spite of mud, heat or cold, or desperate resistance, you have always shown the dogged determination to win. "It is a fine tribute to the British race that a newly-raised battalion, without any previous traditions, which are such assets to regular battalions, should have outfought the German battalions, trained to war for generations.