comforting us with wounds all over us, we had to hold _their_ hands an’ comfort ’em!” As far as the Guards Division was concerned, no reports of the fight—company, battalion or brigade—tally. This is inevitable, since no company knew what the next was doing, and in a three days’ endurance-contest, hours and dates run into one. The essential fact remains. The 4th Guards Brigade stopped the German rush to the sea through a gap that other divisions had left; and in doing so lost two thirds at least of its effectives. Doubtless, had there been due forethought from the beginning, this battle need never have been waged at all. Doubtless it could have been waged on infinitely less expensive lines; but with a nation of amateurs abruptly committed to gigantic warfare and governed by persons long unused even to the contemplation of war, accidents must arise at every step of the game. Sir Douglas Haig, in his despatches, wrote: “The performance of all the troops engaged in the most gallant stand,” which was only an outlying detail of the Battle of the Lys, “and especially that of the 4th Guards Brigade on whose front of some 4000 yards the heaviest attacks fell, is worthy of the highest praise. No more brilliant exploit has taken place since the opening of the enemy’s offensive, though gallant actions have been without number.” He goes on to say—and the indictment is sufficiently damning—that practically the whole of the divisions there had “been brought straight out of the Somme battlefield where they had suffered severely, and been subjected to great strain. All these divisions, without adequate rest and filled with young reinforcements which they had had no time to assimilate, were again hurriedly thrown into the fight, and in spite of the great disadvantage under which they laboured, succeeded in holding up the advance of greatly superior forces of fresh troops. Such an accomplishment reflects the greatest credit on the youth of Great Britain as well as upon those responsible for the training of the young soldiers sent from home at the time.” The young soldiers of the Battalion certainly came up to standard; they were keen throughout and—best of all—the A.P.M. and his subordinates who have, sometimes, unpleasant work to do at the rear, reported that throughout the fight “there were no stragglers.” Unofficial history asserts that, afterwards, the Battalion was rather rude to men of other divisions when discussing what had happened in the Forest.