EPILOGUE
January 20th.
Finds me in camp with a tent to myself and things working smoothly; everything, as far as humanly possible, is ready for any eventuality, and the Turk, if he tries any tricks, will get his knuckles badly rapped. The K.O.S.B.’s go by to the wild, inspiring strains of the pipes. Everything is bustle—trains shunting, stores coming up, horsemen and guns moving into position, and there is an air of expectancy over everything. And so these random notes come to an end. I am back in camp with the horrors of the Peninsula left behind me for ever. Of those who sailed from England so lightheartedly in March, few are left, but those that remain are attached to each other by invisible fetters. Those strange months—dull and exciting, tragic and humorous, spent under the eye of the enemy on an alien shore—form a common bond between us. All of us now know the full meaning of Life, and all of us have walked, not once, but many times, with Death on the grim Peninsula. We have been beaten—not so much by the enemy as by climatic and geographical conditions; but beaten we are, and nothing remains but to accept defeat like sportsmen.