I have been round the trenches once or twice with the Brigade Major of one of the brigades of a Territorial Division, and I have been astonished to see the number of small points which his quick and experienced eye has detected, which he has pointed out, always in a tactful, suggesting way, to the officers in charge of the front-line companies--here a German loophole left open, offering a chance for a good shot (in which these Territorial battalions abound); there a line of fresh earth behind the German trench, suggesting underground activity of some sort; there, again, a weak parapet in our fire-trench, or a man whom the careful eye has seen exposing himself recklessly. The Brigade Major, who had fought at Mons, had experience: the Territorial officers were getting it. The courteous, eager way in which they accepted his hints was as charming as the suave fashion in which they were proffered. The army in the field has not been slow to learn that a profusion of talent in the arts and crafts is lying dormant in the Territorial battalions. If an expert in any branch is wanted, application is always made to the nearest Territorial battalion, seldom, if ever, without success. A friend of mine, a company commander in the Ypres region, having procured a piano for his company’s rest billets behind the line, found the instrument so much out of tune as to be useless. Forthwith word was sent round for a piano-tuner. A search through the battalion drew a blank. A note to an adjacent Territorial regiment produced a finished piano-tuner who had been driving a lorry in the Mechanical Transport. Naturally, he had none of his piano-tuning tools with him, but he made excellent shift with a couple of spanners from the travelling workshop. In the same way a Brigade wanted a plumber and a clerk, and got both from its Territorial battalion. The clerk was a bookmaker’s clerk, it is true, but he proved himself a treasure--“... Besides,” as the Staff Captain said, “if one ever wants to make a book on a race at home, why, there he is, don’t you know!”