ALF CLEANS HIS BUTTONS

When the battalion moved out of the line the appearance of Private Higgins could not be described as smart. The only person who attempted to describe it at all was the company sergeant-major; he did it rather well.

Higgins did not spend the remainder of his tour of duty in the condition of indecorous discomfort in which he was hauled from the Glue-Pot. On crawling out of his shell-hole, he first rescued his trousers with some difficulty from inside his derelict thigh-boots, and then made his way to the dressing-station—a large dug-out—where he was dried and his torn jacket was roughly repaired. For the rest of his time he wore the felt-lined leather jerkin which he had forgotten to take with him on his former adventure; but as luck would have it he was not required on any further errand.

The battalion left its trenches—handed over thankfully to the North Surreys—about midnight, eight days after it had moved in. Its numbers, in spite of the mildness of Fritz, had been sadly depleted. All precautions notwithstanding, a large number of men had succumbed to trench feet, and[Pg 14] the remainder could scarcely do more than crawl. They made their way painfully as far as the reserve trenches, and next day they reached a village some miles behind the line, where they found themselves in quite comfortable billets—the men in huts, the officers in farms and cottages. The hut allotted to "C" Company contained a complicated erection in wood and wire-netting, which provided two tiers of bedsteads down almost the entire length of each side. There was, however, a small space at one end, screened off with waterproof sheets; this was appropriated to the joint use of the C.S.M. and the C.Q.M.S.

[Pg 14]

As soon as the battalion was settled in, the usual business began of repairing the ravages of the trenches and transforming a crew of ragged, bearded scaramouches back into self-respecting members of a smart regiment.

Captain Richards paraded his company in front of its billet, and surveyed it more in sorrow than in anger. He himself and his officers had managed, in some wonderful way, to turn themselves out as spotless as if they had just strolled in from Piccadilly. But they had the advantage over the men of carrying spare suits of clothes in their valises, and of possessing servants.

"Well, 'C' Company," remarked its Commander. "The quartermaster is going to take you in hand this afternoon, and I don't envy him his 

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