The Major in command of the new arrivals proves to be an old and none too amicable acquaintance of our Major’s, their mutual esteem having been obscured by a law-suit some time in the past which resulted in our Major’s being forced to part with a considerable sum of money. To make himself more welcome the new Major has introduced innovations. Up till now, in accordance with our Major’s theories, we have been a strictly business community, our energies concentrated chiefly upon what the boys call P. and S.—pick and shovel. But now with the coming of the new detachment we have blossomed out with all sorts of military frills. Armed sentinels marching their beats in a military manner fairly encumber the camp. One is halted and challenged a half-dozen times on one’s way home from the canteen at ten o’clock in the evening. I am startled out of my dreams in the middle of the night by shouts of, “Corporal of the Guard, Post Number Four!” under my very window. And the best part of it is that these “Long Boys,” never having had so much as the A-B-C of military training, make the drollest imitations of real soldiers that ever were. The atmosphere at Headquarters has of late, I gather, been slightly tinged with electricity. But the boys belonging to the older organizations in camp have been enjoying themselves to an unholy degree “stuffing” the new arrivals with ghastly tales of air-raids, gas bombs, and Serial machine-gun barrages. As in all huts, we have a big map of France tacked to the wall where the boys can have easy access to it. After one of these maps has been up a short while, it is always a simple matter when glancing at it, to locate one’s self—one has only to look for a dirty spot; a little later, countless more grimy fingers having in the meantime been applied, one looks for the hole. Yesterday one of our new friends came to me and asked: “Please, Ma’am, could you tell me where that there place, ‘No Man’s Land’ that they talk about in the papers is? I’ve been a-lookin’ an’ a-lookin’ an’ I can’t find it on the map nowhere.”