These were for the most part all neatly rolled up in brown or green valises ready to be thrown on the transport wagon at an instant's notice. Now and again an officer would come to a pair of scales outside the mess, weigh his kit, and then start frantically to undo it, pull out a pair of boots or a blanket, and roll it up again. It took some nice adjustment to get all that was wanted into the 35 lb. allowed. The following morning we heard a band and cheering, and looking out of the window saw some three hundred men marching up from the station. All the regiment turned out to greet the new arrivals--they were fine men in the prime of life, and swung along evidently well used to pack and rifle. They were the old soldiers of the regiment--reservists who had been called back to the Colours on mobilization from civil life. They had been down to the depot, thrown off their civilian clothes, and taken up their rifles once more. They had most of them served under many of the officers who were still with the regiment. It put heart into all, and strengthened the general feeling of confidence that we should see the thing through, to see so many old faces coming back to march with the regiment once more. For a night or two before the regiment embarked we dined in mess thirty strong. I used to wonder, as we sat round the table, looking at the faces of my brother officers, what fate held in store for them, how many would come back, how others would die. It was going to be "a hell of a war." All were agreed on that. There was no feeling of going off for a day's hunting about anyone. Men made their wills quietly, packed their belongings, and wrote letters of good-bye to their friends. One grey morning at six the regiment marched across the open plain behind the barracks to the little siding. A few officers' wives and those left behind came to see them off, but there was no cheering and few tears. The train stole quietly out of the station, and the regiment went to war. "Well--see you out soon," Goyle called to me. "Yes--I expect so," I answered, and said good-bye to him and the others. Alas, there are few left now to read these words. The war continues. Of the survivors a half have still to serve. For me, my fighting days are done. I am not sorry. Whatever ideas I had as a cadet, this war has taught me that fighting is too fierce and heart-racking to be a sport or anything except a duty. These sketches of war as I saw it I write once more by the banks of the upper reaches of the Thames, calm and beautiful with her fringe of browning leaves, as she was stately and magnificent in full midsummer a year before. Now autumn has come and the dead leaves lie in the golden sunlight.