J. MACKERETH: _Hymn of the Airman_. CHAPTER XVII ENTER THE NEW ARMY “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”--ECCLES. 1. 9. The public at large first heard of the arrival of the New Army at the front through the Commander-in-Chief’s Despatch, published on July 12, covering the second battle of Ypres and the military operations down to the end of May. In that Despatch Sir John French announced that, since the date of his last report, several divisions of the New Army had arrived in France, and added that their physique was excellent, and that their bearing and appearance on parade reflected great credit on the officers and staffs responsible for their training. But there were many homes in England in which this carefully guarded secret had long been known--in fact, ever since the sinister spectre of the war had crept into the house on the sudden departure of husband, son, or brother for the port of embarkation. Imagination, quickly stirred by love, pictured the young soldier landed in post-haste in France, and forthwith marched into the trenches--into battle. I met one of the first divisions of the New Army to come out to France within a few days of its landing. I fell in with it, indeed, at the end of its very first march towards the front from the railhead, where it had detrained on its journey up from the coast base. One of its battalions came into the little village where the war correspondents had their camp. It was a picture that will not soon fade from my memory, the files of wet and mud-stained Highlanders tramping in through the gathering twilight, their baggage-carts and field-kitchens rumbling along behind. Their transport seemed strangely spick-and-span under its layer of yellow splashings from the road, and then, reading on the side of a cart the inscription, giving number and name of the battalion, I realized with a thrill that this was the New Army. With what fresh interest I looked at those men again! The smiles and tears of a thousand homes seemed to wreathe themselves about those fine stalwart figures. If these bonny Highlanders did not each carry a Marshal’s baton in his haversack, then, at least, they bore there the hopes and pride of England. For, say what you will, the New Army occupies a place of its own in the nation’s thoughts. Regulars and Territorials both have their warm corners in the national heart, but the New Army--it is you, it is I, it is all of us. It is a child of the war, born since we broke with our old peaceful past, born of the new spirit of self-sacrifice and determination that is remaking a nation under our very eyes. The thought that is uppermost on seeing the New Army in the field is that these are the men who must complete what has been begun, the men that must carry on the torch so long and so bravely upheld by the Old Army.