Wherever the eye rested, fear threatened and muttered. The doubt sprang up that even we might be defeated. They marched us to and fro under sealed orders. They made us die and suffer; but they told us nothing. Who were they—these people who never spoke to us or saw us, these people whose lives were too valuable to endanger? They lived miles behind the lines in chbteaux. They slept in sheeted beds. They ate as much as they liked. They took two leaves to Blighty to our one. Their breasts were covered with decorations. They never knew the weariness of night-marches: staff-cars whisked them between breakfast and lunch across distances that it took us a week to trudge. What right had they to all this consideration? Were they really so wise as they thought they were? If they bungled, it was we who had to pay; it was our bodies that would be mangled; our blood, needlessly expended, that would wash out their errors. And when in spite of bad staff-work our courage had conquered, it would be we who would get whatever blame was coming and they who would get the credit. In the centre section a horse fell down; it had gone to sleep while in draught. The driver must have been at fault; he, too, was probably nodding. From down the column Tubby Grain’s voice reached us, angrily strafing in unprintable language. The commotion grew fainter as the other teams swung out into the road and the column passed on. At a bend we came across a Chinese Labour Battalion, shuffling up to work on the trenches. Across their shoulders they balanced poles, with the load tied on either end. Their clothing was nondescript—the refuse of every rag-shop of Europe and the Orient. The proudest Chinaman of the lot swaggered and sweltered in the remains of a great-coat, which had belonged to an officer in the Prussian Guard. They went by us clacking their tongues and laughing, happy as children if one of our chaps smiled back. Beside them, rigid and regimental, marched their British non-commissioned officers, hard, uncheerful men of the Indian service, who carried rods with which to enforce obedience.