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"I satisfied myself of the exact situation, and having visited the troops of the brigades on both flanks, went back to the ravine, and from one of the battalion headquarters telephoned to my Brigadier and told him what I had found out.

But it is hardly possible that this strength was ever reached. From a passage in the third chapter of Macaulay's history it does not seem as if the full complement of a regiment of cavalry can have much exceeded four hundred men; but, I repeat, the indiscriminate use of the terms troop and regiment, battalion and squadron, makes all calculations theoretical and vague.

In any case he would have been out of the fight, for the authorities had at last realized the madness of sending a whole Battalion into action, and to avoid a repetition of the post-Hohenzollern difficulties, every Battalion was ordered to leave behind, at Souastre, the 2nd in Command and a proportion of officers, N.C.O.'s and specialists.

What with the terrific storm which lit up the landscape as light as day, and the newly-acquired responsibility of drilling and disciplining a battalion of raw troops for the war, the outlook spelt much hard work.

"You know we are to join the Battalion at A . They'll be living like kings there. Hicks will get so fat he'll drop over on the march. Headquarters must have something particularly nasty in mind; the infantry is always fed up before a slaughter. But I've been thinking; I have some old friends at A . Suppose we go on there a day early, and get them to take us in?

So Harry went out and watched the dress parade and the ensuing double time review. After the battalion was dismissed, Tuthill was introduced to the Superintendent. "Well, Mr. Tuthill," said the Superintendent, "I'm glad to meet you, but I really do not see what we need of a trainer."

Several long trains of equipages and disbanded soldiers were flying towards Studzianka in different directions; drawn aside by one of these crowds, mistaking his road, and leaving on his right that which had been taken by the army, the leader of this battalion glided to the borders of the river, followed all its windings and turnings, and protected by the combat of his less fortunate comrades, by the darkness, and the very difficulties of the ground, moved off in silence, escaped from the enemy, and brought to Victor the confirmation of Partouneaux's surrender.

To add to the discomfort, "The Conquest" was so crammed full with passengers, that sailors and officers had hardly half of the space usually allotted to them on board ship. Besides the crew, there were on board a half battalion of marines, and a hundred and sixty mechanics of various trades, whom government sent out for the use of the colony.

The red and gold mailed fist of a General Staff reduces me to a sort of pulverized state of meekness, which ends in my smiling at everyone and declining anything to eat. As machine-gun officer to our Battalion I had to go through it, and as everyone was very nice to me, it all went off satisfactorily.

You must come another day and see what Sergeant Parsons is doing with the vast quantities of timber, corrugated iron, and other stores supplied to make the billets staff-proof for the future. The end of the last chapter left the Battalion complaining of our guns and otherwise merrymaking in the front line.