The detachment was really good at bayonet practice. While attached to the Fifth Battalion at home the men had earned unstinted praise from super-critical instructors at the way in which they prodded the suspended sacks. With a few exceptions all the men of No. 3 Platoon were either Derby men or conscripts. They all had good excuses--or they individually firmly imagined they had--why they should not "join up." It wasn't that they were not patriotic, yet circumstances urged them to hold back as long as possible. They groused while they awaited the long-deferred call. The uncertainty of the whole business was the worst part of it; but when they did join up they made the very best of an unwanted job, went through the training like Trojans, and longed for the order for the Front. Socially they were a motley lot. In addition to the "former occupations" of men already mentioned there were two solicitors, a 'Varsity graduate, an artist, a general manager, half a score of small business men, several mechanics and labourers and two ex-convicts--all firmly determined to have a slap at Kaiser Bill's grey-coated Huns. For twenty minutes the line of motor-buses jolted and swayed, sometimes making abrupt turns to avoid deep shell holes, at others slowing down or stopping to allow convoys proceeding in opposite direction to pass. All the while the deafening din continued, increasing in intensity as the distance decreased. At length the vehicles pulled up at the end of that stage of the journey. The stiff-limbed and sleepy men, hampered by their heavy equipment, got down into the mud once more. There was very little talking. Every man seemed to be too interested in the novel form of Brock's fireworks to indulge in conversation. As far as the eye could reach the countryside--slightly undulating--was pin-pricked with flashes of gun-fire. Overhead star-shells of varying colours threw a lurid glare upon the mounds of brickwork that at one time formed populous and prosperous villages. Half a mile to the right a church tower still stood, with a jagged hole in one angle. It seemed marvellous that the whole structure had not collapsed. Ahead the road ended abruptly in a mound of earth and stones thrown up by the impact and explosion of a Hun eleven-inch shell. Almost touching the outer edge of the crater was a Calvary--the cross standing out sharply against the artificially lighted horizon. The crucifix was the only object left standing within a radius of a hundred yards from the place where the shell had dropped. Suddenly a lurid flash, followed almost simultaneously by a roar that outvoiced the distant rumble of the artillery, seemed to burst from the ground within thirty paces of the platoon as they formed up to continue their journey on the march.