THE BATTLE OF FRANCE
Every time haphazard invention brings into being
some new military function, it is handed to that
army Jack-of-all-trades, the officer of the R.E.s,
admirable product of Woolwich, Cambridge, and
Chatham. . * „ The R.E.s built the army's first cars.
In 1890 they laid the first undersea mines. In 1910
they flew the first military aeroplanes. During that
war, which has for some time been known as the
Great War and which many of the more prudent are
now calling the Four Years War, it fell to the R.E.S
to adopt as many as sixteen war babies, from gas
cylinders onwards. Already a child has been born of
this war—the excavating companies with the very
complex machinery they use for their work. Then,
as the war baby grows, it wants to live its own
autonomous life and leave the apron-strings of
the R.E.s. Which is the destiny of all babies.
His Majesty's Engineers is the corps of Eternal
Parentage.
Mules from India
From beneath the turbans shine velvet-soft eyes.
All of them wear the long moustaches of all the
Mongols and sit cross-legged, preparing the old, old
foods of the Orient. One scooped the moist flour
from its bowl, rolled it into little balls that he
flattened like pancakes on a large stone: and they in
their turn were tossed on to a glowing sheet of
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