weary marches and wanderings in networks and mazes of trenches, was
when they crossed a road which had for long marked the boundary line
between the grounds occupied by the British and French forces.

"Do you suppose the O.C. is drunk, or that the guide has lost his way?"
said Private Robinson. "Somebody ought to tell him we're off our beat
and that trespassers will be prosecuted. Not but what he don't know
that, seeing he prosecuted me cruel six months ago for roving off into
the French lines--said if I did it again I might be took for a spy and
shot. Anyhow, I'd be took for being where I was out o' bounds and get a
dose of Field Punishment. Wonder where we're bound for?"

"Don't see as it matters much," said his next file. "I suppose one wet
field's as good as another to sleep in, so why worry?"

A little farther on, the battalion met a French Infantry Regiment on
the march. The French regiment's road discipline was rather more lax
than the British, and many tolerantly amused criticisms were passed on
the loose formation, the lack of keeping step, and the straggling lines
of the French. The criticisms, curiously enough, came in a great many
cases from the very men in the Towers' ranks who had often "groused"
most at the silliness of themselves being kept up to the mark in these
matters. The marching Frenchmen were singing--but singing in a fashion
quite novel to the British. Throughout their column there were anything
up to a dozen songs in progress, some as choruses and some as solos,
and the effect was certainly rather weird. The Tower Bridge officers,
knowing their own men's fondness for swinging march songs, expected,
and, to tell truth, half hoped that they would give a display of their
harmonious powers. They did, but hardly in the expected fashion. One
man demanded in a growling bass that the "Home Fires be kept Burning,"