“It’s staff work that counts,” they said. “We’ve got unity of command; Hindenburg. You’ve got two generals, Haig and Foch.” Indeed, everywhere behind the line there was intense gratification, but not so much of the victory-lust that must have inflamed them in the early months of the war, but of the weariness that four years had brought, and of the thought that the close of so much misery was near. Actual successes (so it appeared) were only the means to an end--it was peace that mattered. All this was very different from what I had expected. On the way to Battalion Headquarters I had visioned an inquisitional cross-examination. I had expected to be questioned by some fierce-jawed general, who would demand the secrets of the General Staff, which I should heroically refuse. Then he would call for the thumbscrew and the rack, for the cat-o’-nine-tails and the red-hot iron. “Will you speak now?” he would hiss. But I should remain as ever steadfastly loyal. The entire scenic panorama of the _Private of the Buffs_ had swept before my eye; only a spasm of optimism had changed the crisis. Just at the moment when I was being led out to be shot, the general would suddenly relent. His voice would shake, and a quiver would run down his massive frame. “No, no!” he would say, with out-stretched hand. “Spare him! He’s only a boy, and besides he’s a soldier and, damn it! that’s all that I am myself.” Actuality, however, refused to reflect the Lyceum stage. The man with the records viewed my presence with complete equanimity. “Oh, well,” he said, “it’s no good my asking you any questions. You’d be sure to answer them wrong, and besides, I don’t think you could tell me so very much. Let’s see, you’re in the ---- Division, aren’t you? Well, you’ve got the following battalions with you.” And he proceeded to give gratuitous information on the most intricate points of organisation and establishment, all the hundred and one little things that had been so laboriously tabulated before the Sandhurst exams., and had afterwards been so speedily forgotten. He knew the number of stretcher-bearers in a battalion, the number of G.S. wagons at brigade, and the quantity of red tabs at division. Any one possessing a quarter of his knowledge could have had a staff appointment for the asking. “Not bad,” he laughed. It was now two o’clock in the afternoon, and since the barrage had opened at three in the morning, none of us had sat down for a moment. We began to entertain hopes of lunch. “Where are we bound for?” I asked. “Douai.” “But we don’t march there to-day, do we?” “If you can,” he said cheerfully. “But it’s about twenty kilos, and by the time you’ve got to Vitry you probably won’t be sorry to have a rest.”