* * * * * *
"You'll have to wait till it's dark." A weary Quartermaster, wandering through Ypres, met Draycott and stopped. "Thank God! you've come. We've got three officers left and a hundred and twenty men."
"Where are they?" he demanded. "How shall I find them?"
"Very likely you won't." The other laughed mirthlessly. "I'll take you up to-night—we walk the last bit to the trenches. If a flare goes up—stand still; there's no other rule."
"You're about done in, Seymour," said Draycott, watching him keenly.
"What's the trouble?"
"The trouble is Hell." The Quartermaster passed his hand wearily over his forehead. "Utter, absolute, complete—Hell. The boys have been in the front line for twenty-one days; and"—he spoke with a sudden dreadful earnestness—"the end is not far off."
"My God!" muttered Draycott, "is it as bad as that?"
* * * * * *
No trenches, no dug outs, no reserves. Ceaseless German attacks, rain, mud, death. And then, three or four days of icy coldness, with the bitter Arctic wind cutting the sodden, tired, breaking men like a knife. Fighting every hour, with rifles and bayonets and fists—sleepless, tired out, finished. Only a spirit which made possible the impossible supported them: only the glory of their traditions held the breaking line of Old Contemptibles to the end. And at the end—they died. . . .
But their spirit lives on, undimmed, untarnished. It is the spirit of the New Armies—the Civilian Armies of Britain. They were training back in England when Clive Draycott went to the Land: they were learning the message of the old Regulars from New Zealand to Yukon. It is not learned in a day—that message: there is much watering and weeding to do before the seed can reach perfection, but the Land would not wait. . . . It was greedy then—as now; the only difference was the amount of grain available. And when Clive Draycott went to it there was very little. To God Almighty the praise. What there was, was very good.