You can’t “crime” two-thirds of a battery; the only thing to be done was to take steps to avoid the consequences. I sent the guard to summon all the N.C.O.’. and officers to the horse-lines. We then brought together all the men who were still fit for duty and, having increased the guard, set to work to carry or lead all those who were incapable back to their quarters. When we had called the roll and knew that no one was absent, we made a search for any drink that might be concealed about the men’s persons and then proceeded to sober up the worst cases by dashing buckets of water over them. When this had been done, we placed an armed guard at the entrance to every billet, with orders to permit no one to go out or to enter. We then left them to sleep it off. At sun-down a dispatch-rider dashed up to Brigade Headquarters. The sound of his motorbike chugging through the village had been sufficient warning to all the officers’ messes; there were representatives from all the batteries waiting in the courtyard when the adjutant came out to give us the Colonel’s orders. “The orders are to hook in at once and be ready to move off by 9 p.m.” “In what direction?” we asked. “I don’t know,” he said, “and that’s no lie. The Colonel doesn’t know, but he’s off to see the General. In any case we shan’t be told until the last minute.” Then commenced the appalling job of getting a half-sober battery harnessed up, hooked in and looking sufficiently respectable that its true condition might not be apparent. This was a case when the Iron discipline of the Army showed at its best. A well-disciplined unit is never so drunk that it can’t beat a teetotal one in which the discipline is lax. It was extraordinary how under the spur of necessity the men pulled themselves together; they had learnt how to make their insubordinate bodies obey their wills up front, flogging them forward to victory through mud and cold and weariness. With leaden eyes and shaking hands, they went through all the familiar motions, so that the battery was mounted and sitting to attention a quarter of an hour before the time appointed struck. In the inspection that followed, hardly a buckle was out of place or a piece of equipment ill-adjusted. But there were some men who were kept hidden till the last moment—these were the dead drunk. It was our purpose to bring them out only at the last moment when, trusting to the gathering darkness to conceal their condition, we planned to bind them to the seats of the guns with drag-ropes. It takes all kinds to make an army; some who are the worst actors out at rest, are the finest heroes in action.