reedy windings of the Somme. No one had a good word for the place. The Battalion was in low spirits because the Colonel had been wounded a few weeks before, and he had been so popular that everyone regarded him as irreplaceable. His successor was indulgent and conciliatory, but it seemed that greater aggressiveness would have been preferable. Contrasting him with the rough-tongued efficiency of Kinjack, I began to realize that, in a Commanding Officer, amiability is not enough.
Meanwhile we were in what was called “Corps Reserve,” and Colonel Easby had issued the order, “carry on with platoon training” (a pronouncement which left us free to kill time as best we could). No. 8 Platoon, which was my own compact little command, was not impressive on parade. Of its thirty-four N.C.O. s and men, eight were Lewis gunners and paraded elsewhere. Eight was likewise the number of Private Joneses in my platoon, and my first difficulty was to differentiate between them. The depleted Battalion had been strengthened by a draft from England, and these men were mostly undersized, dull-witted, and barely capable of carrying the heavy weight of their equipment. As an example of their proficiency, I can say that in one case platoon training began with the man being taught how to load his rifle. Afterwards I felt that he would have been less dangerous in his preexisting ignorance.
It was difficult to know what to do with my bored and apathetic platoon. I wasn’t a competent instructor, and my sergeant was conscientious but unenterprising. Infantry Training , which was the only manual available, had been written years before trench warfare came into its own as a factor in world affairs, and the condensed and practical Handbook for the Training of Platoons was not issued until nearly twelve months afterwards. One grey afternoon, when we had gone through all our monotonous exercises and the men’s eyes were more than usually mindless, I had a bright unmilitary idea and ordered them to play hide-and-seek among some trees. After a self-conscious beginning they livened up and actually enjoyed themselves. When I watched them falling in