“Oh, a very cheerful lot,” said a sergeant-major of the old Regular type, who was having a quiet pipe over a halfpenny paper in a shed at the back of some farm buildings in the neighborhood of Armentières, which had been plugged by two hundred German shells that time the day before. (One never knew when the fellows on the other side would take it into their heads to empty their guns that way. They had already killed a lot of civilians thereabouts, but the others stayed on.)

“Not a bit of trouble with them,” said the sergeant-major, “and all as keen as when they grinned into a recruiting office and said, ‘I’m going.’ They’re glad to be out. Over-trained, some of ’em. For ten months we’ve been working ’em pretty hard. Had to, but they were willing enough. Now you couldn’t find a better battalion, though some more famous⁠ ⁠… Till we get our chance, you know.”

He pointed with the stem of his pipe to the open door of an old barn, where a party of his men were resting.

“You’ll find plenty of hot heads among them, but no cold feet. I’ll bet on that.”