But five whole battalions and a number of surplus officers who had managed to get over to England supernumerary to their battalions were left behind on the Plain as a base depot.
Amongst the latter were the writer and Begbie Lyte, and when they rejoined a month or two later their battalion had been cut to pieces and some twenty-five of the officers with whom they had trained were casualties.
It is hard to imagine anything sadder than rejoining a battalion after fighting such as that unless it is the saying of good-bye.
Manœuvres on Salisbury Plain.
CHAPTER VII
INTERIM
For a time there was little news from the Canadians at the front, for they were not immediately placed in the trenches. Trench warfare was then still a novelty; its exact principles had not been developed, and all the training done on the Plain had been the ordinary open style of fighting—quite useless against the strongly entrenched positions the Germans had taken up.