impossible to get off the draft earlier. The colonel said:
"But surely, sergeant-majah . . ."
The sergeant-major, now a deferential shopwalker in a lady's store, pointed out that they had had urgent instructions not to send up the draft without the four hundred Canadian Railway Service men who were to come from Etaples. These men had only arrived that evening at 5.30 . . . at the railway station. Marching them up had taken three-quarters of an hour. The colonel said:
"But surely, sergeant-majah . . ."
Old Cowley might as well have said "madam" as "sir" to the red hat-band . . . The four hundred had come with only what they stood up in. The unit had had to wangle everything: boots, blankets, toothbrushes, braces, rifles, iron-rations, identity disks out of the depot store. And it was now only twenty-one twenty. . . . Cowley permitted his commanding officer at this point to say:
"You must understand that we work in circumstances of extreme difficulty, sir. . . ."
The graceful colonel was lost in an absent contemplation of his perfectly elegant knees.
"I know, of course. . . ." he lisped. "Very difficult . . ." He brightened up to add: "But you must admit you're unfortunate. . . . You must admit that. . . ." The weight settled, however, again on his mind.
Tietjens said:
"Not, I suppose, sir, any more unfortunate than any other unit working under a dual control for supplies. . . ."
The colonel said:
