Sixty-four, ninety-four!

CHAPTER I

N the fine autumn weather that succeeded the | Battle of Loos, the tenth battalion—a “‘ Kitch- @ ener” or ‘“‘ New Army”’ battalion as it was then called—of a well-known English line regi- ment found itself in and around one of those big, four-sided farmhouses that the Spaniards used to build to protect their Netherland territory from the French. It stood just where the chalk downs of the Pas de Calais slope towards the Flemish plain. Its inhabitants spoke French or Flemish indiscriminately and were beginning to pick up a good bit of English.

SIXTY-FOUR, NINETY-FOUR!

France a battalion of the New Armies, in which Captain Hunter and one or two N.C.O.s were the only regular soldiers. Face to face with an enemy of whose language he did not understand a word, and whose theory of International Rela- tionships, military training and general conduct would have been quite beyond his comprehension, his bearing did him and his kind every credit. He went into the Battle of Loos, ostensibly an experienced veteran, really as strange to the new conditions as the mechanics, clerks and labourers of which his battalion was composed. The Kotal campaign of 1900 gave him no hint of what to do in the face of machine-gun and heavy- artillery fire, such as he had never conceived possible. In spite of all this, through three days and nights, sleepless and practically foodless, he had carried out such orders as had reached him, held on in the absence of orders, and when finally relieved by the arrival of another unit, had gathered together what remained of his men, whole platoons of whom were missing, withdrawn them, entrained them, and established them in an entirely new sector. And now he was billeted in a farmhouse whose inhabitants spoke a tongue which the Adjutant thought was Cape Dutch. He had slept soundly, awakened fresh ; had bathed, shaved and appeared at breakfast among the remaining officers of his battalion. In those early days Colonel Gilford still maintained the peace-time taboo of “‘ No shop in the Mess,” 6

SIXTY-FOUR, NINETY-FOUR!

This young officer, by name Geoffrey Skene, had not been with the battalion twelve hours, and regarded himself as one of the most fortunate men on earth. A few hours ago he had been prey to a dreadful fear—lest the victory of Loos should end the War, without his ever having fired a shot.... And suddenly his orders had come, and with a beating heart he had left the reinforcement camp at Etaples, to join a battalion he had never seen. By chance in the only other occupant of his railway carriage he had found a man called Earnshaw he had known slightly in England. They were both bound for the same unit—perhaps the first of the depleted regiments to be hauled out of the line and given a chance to fill up ; and there sprang up between them one of those quick intimacies of the early days, before everyone became bored

SIXTY-FOUR, NINETY-FOUR!

An hour passed and the first halt was called. On moving off again, the Company Commander, a tall fair lad of eighteen, got down and walked with Skene, giving him his first true insight into that “ great British victory,” as the papers called it, the Battle of Loos. ‘‘ Never saw such a show ; weeks and weeks of marching, full of beans ; then up a road toa place called Vermelles ; every- thing chock-a-block ; mules and men and guns all mixed up. Then they took us out over the open ; bare ground all cut up with shell-holes, old trenches ; then it began to rain. When we took up our line, everything was soaked, no one

CONTENTS

. Lhe Field of Arras

CHAPTER @XVit

CHAPTER @XVit The Field of Arras b WEEK later, Skene was standing as close

SIXTY-FOUR, NINETY-FOUR!

Where Skene now lay, the width of the Doullens- Arras road separated him from a Canadian Corps. They were indistinguishable from other British Troops, except for the Maple Leaf and their accent. [hey were unrecognizable for the old Canadian Divisions of the salient who wore slouch hats, carried their flags into action, and would salute none but their own officers. |

ANOTHER PARIS

Not that day either did Skene apply for Paris leave. His letter became soiled in his pocket. He tore it up. ‘Then came the Bosche retreat of February, 1917. The next letter he wrote was from near Arras, in full preparation for the impending battle. He wrote in unmeasured terms, explaining how he was prevented from joining her immediately. On re-reading it, it now appeared to him to have been written in an absent-minded moment. He read it and re-read it. ‘The phrases were all he could ask, but some- thing seemed to have dropped out of them, and there was no mention indeed of leave, much love and reflection on this terrible war—and no fourth page. He searched in vain for something to put on that fourth page, which he felt all such letters should have, but failed to find it. He never posted that letter either.