“The Captain ’e says....” “Lieutenant Blank ups with his rifle quick-like....” “The Major? ’E’s a fair nut, ’e is. First over the parapet ’e was, and going that fast that, what with the bombs you ’ave round you, and them you carry in a box, we couldn’t ’ardly keep up with ’im!” This is a sergeant-major on the death of his Colonel: “Yes, sir,” he says in his deep, slow voice, “our Colonel was hit, the best soldier that ever commanded this battalion. He was a grand man. ‘Sergeant-major,’ he says to me, ‘sergeant-major, I’m just going up to have a look round.’ Well, he didn’t come back. Then a man coming down, wounded, says in a great fuss: ‘Sergeant-major, it’s something awful up there. The Colonel’s killed,’ he says, ‘and the Adjutant, too!’ ‘You’ve got the wind up, my man,’ I said to the chap, not believing him. ‘You run along to the dressing-station and get your head bound up. You haven’t any brains to spare, remember.’ But, all the same, I went up to see for myself what was happening. It was true, sure enough. There was the Colonel, mortal bad he was, and the Adjutant killed. Ah, he was a grand gentleman, our Colonel! There were not many like him, sir! We could ill spare him!” When you have seen officers and men together in the trenches you understand Francis Grenfell’s dying words: “Tell them I died happy. I loved my squadron.” Those noble words are the epitome of the lifework of the Regimental Officer. Out of this close friendship between officer and man springs a great spirit of _camaraderie_ between officers in the trenches. It is no small test of character for a group of men of different stations, ages, and dispositions to live in the closest possible association, as men do in the trenches, for days at a time, and never to fail to display that mutual forbearance and readiness to serve which help men over the rough paths of life. During the months I have been at the front I have been privileged, at different times, to see a great deal of officers together in the trenches. I have spent nights with them in their dug-outs; I have had various meals with them at their messes; I have accompanied them on their rounds. What has struck me more than anything has been the real spirit of co-operation existing between them. This takes the form not only of the sharing of the minor comforts of life, such as the pooling of gifts sent out from home--which was only to be expected--but of a continual striving to help one another, to render one another small services in their duties, to cover up, if needs be, one another’s shortcomings, and, above all, to make things smooth for the new man.