2. _Runners._--It is doubtful if any collection of individuals had to work so consistently hard and under such trying conditions, and managed withal to be so invariably cheerful, as the Battalion and Company Runners. Organized at Woking, and recruited largely from the buglers, they first really came into active existence at Strazeele. Throughout the history of the battalion there appears to have been no occasion when a runner failed to reach his destination, except through being incapacitated by wounds. Always on the move, they were the first in the line and the last out of it, with endless messages going day and night; one day cycling along the ominous Houplines road, another day leaving the safety of a pill-box to make their way across mud and shell-holes in the blackness of the night; or, again, dashing (not once, but again and again) through a barrage. Such were some of the duties of which a runner's life was composed. Before the gas bombardment the Battalion Runners had no actual N.C.O. in charge of them, but later Lance-Corporal Brown, one of the originals, was appointed to take charge of them. 3. _Lewis Gunners._--In training Lewis Gunners at home we were more than fortunate in possessing Lieutenant Bowring and Sergeant Machell, with the result that we went overseas with gunners possessed of an efficiency of which any battalion might be proud. From then onwards was one unceasing struggle to keep up the numbers. Holding as they often did the dangerous posts, the casualties were not few, and as our numbers dwindled the supply of guns grew steadily greater. The teams generally had to go into the line twenty-four hours before the remainder of the battalion, and, in addition to the ordinary impedimenta of a relief, they had to carry, at any rate along the trenches, their guns and ammunition, which, when conditions were bad, often proved an almost overwhelming burden. Out of the line they had to be cleaning their guns and ammunition unceasingly, while the care of innumerable spare parts was enough to drive anyone crazy. After Lieutenant Bowring, 2nd-Lieutenants Rothwell, Dwyer, Hicks, and Lieutenants Wilson and Drewsen, in turn took charge of their destinies; while Sergeants Bond, Simpson, and Rowlandson acted in succession as Battalion Lewis Gun Sergeants.