A wounded soldier said that there was a fascination in battle that made him wish to be in one again. "You forget all fear, everybody is full of excitement. You hardly think of your funeral." An officer wrote, after describing the terrible marches our troops had to make in their strategic retirement to the neighbourhood of Paris: "Our long ordeal came to a sudden end. For reasons we could not understand the Germans were retreating on our left and forsaking the tempting bait of Paris. On September 5th we got the order to advance, and instantly new life flowed into our veins. It is amazing how speedily we forget our fatigue and the mental and physical horrors we had gone through. Though their feet were sore and many of them bleeding, the men stepped back to the Marne singing, 'It's a long, long way to Tipperary,' or the new version, 'It's a wrong, wrong way to tickle Mary.'" Sir Douglas Haig, the General who led so well in the retreat, had good reason for saying, "We have had hardish times, but nothing in our history has surpassed the fine soldierly qualities displayed by the troops." CHAPTER XVIII Play and Work So well did our soldiers keep up their spirits that they were always ready for a little play even when engaged in hard work and fighting. Here is an instance given by a Coldstream Guardsman: "We were down to the last cigarette in a box that had done the company for a week. There was a fight to get it, but the sergeant-major said we would have to shoot for it like the King's Prize at Bisley. It was to go to the man hitting most Germans in fifty shots. A corporal was sent up a tree to signal hits and misses as best he could. Half the company entered, and the prize was won by a chap who had twenty-three hits. The runner-up had twenty-two, and as a sort of consolation prize he was allowed to sit near while the winner smoked the cigarette. He said being near the smoke was better than nothing." Seven men of the Worcestershire Regiment were able to do a little business one day when they were told they could go for a stroll. They encountered a party of Germans, and captured them all without firing a shot. It was so simple. "We just covered them with our rifles and they surrendered." Few of us take our easy work in time of peace in the playful spirit which was shown by our soldiers in the trying experiences of the trenches. This is what an officer wrote: "For three weeks we remained near the Aisne, east of Soissons, taking our turn in the trenches in shifts of four days and nights with two days' rest south of the river. We made the most wonderful trenches. The men called them the rabbit warren and themselves rabbits, and when the big guns gave ten seconds' warning they cried out, 'Here comes the gamekeeper,' and darted into their holes."