They don't look very depressed, do they? It was men like these who held the Germans time and again against great odds. 188 CHILD'S BOOK OF THE WAR troops have been wonderful. Beat to the world, tired and hungry, they have fought grandly, but they are well worn now. The infantry were grand and the cavalry saved them again and again, covering their retreat in a mag Copyright by Western Newspaper Union Anti-aircraft Gunners nificent manner. I am coming back all right, never fear. Have been in such tight corners, and under such fire, that if I was meant to go I should have gone by now, I am sure. I "I have just found my kit. haven't changed anything for a week or taken off my boots for five days. I look too filthy for words, and have been looking after my own horse, and have ridden one all the time, as I could not get the others.' THE IMPERTURBABLE SCOTCH There was no growling except at having "Tommy Atkins was equal to it. to fall back before an enemy over whom, as Lord Kitchener put it, he felt he had established his personal ascendancy. Take the following impressions of a Highlander: 'We of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders took up a position facing a wood where the Germans were in strong force. As they emerged our boys met them with a raking riflefire, which mowed them down. On they came again and again with the same devastating result. Their bullets came whistling around us, but we were indifferent, the marksmanship being very poor. The German infantry carry their rifles under their arms, the butts resting on their hips, and they fire as they march. As the enemy poured out en masse into the open it was like the exodus from the Celtic and Rangers Scottish Cup final! Man! if they were only three to one we could go through them easily, but when it comes to ten to one strategy as well as bravery has to be considered.' "Imperturbable responsibility carried them through. 'The soldiers,' said one of their number, 'take everything quite coolly. You would have thought they were at a football cup tie. They were lying in the trenches with German shells flying all around, and they would make would kill and had killed during the day. bets as to how many Germans they They were laughing and joking all the time. A party of the King's Own went into one battle shouting out, "Early pence!" There were chaps, too, coming doors this way. Early doors, ninegoing off again to have another go at in and having their wounds dressed and the Germans. Our men fought simply grand. At Landrecies, while our men were lying in the trenches there were a couple of fellows playing marbles with COTCH ual to: ver whe Felt he ha gyll and Germans ng rife n. O ith the bullets we were being -carry Gre as Reunited bullets from shrapnel-shells which had burst around them. "The officers are grand. They do everything they can for our comfort. They are always looking after our chaps, and I cannot speak highly enough of them. The men, too, seem pleased to think that they are doing their duty to the officers.' Not that it was only a case of dogged defense of guns served till the last man dropped; there were charges of all sorts of infantry upon infantry, of cavalry upon infantry and cavalry, and even upon artillery, notably that of the Ninth Lance near the Belgian border when at great loss a German battery was sabered into silence. Since the battle of the Marne there have been, of course, many more instances of such offensive gallantry. "But it was in the early defensive retreat that Tommy Atkins's fundamental qualities had their best chance of appearing. He has added fresh scrolls of honor to countless regimental flags. He has sealed a fresh compact of mutual trust with his officers and commander-in-chief. To quote one of Tommy Atkins's letters home: 'General French is very popular with his men. There's no side about him, and when he passes along he's just as ready to smile on the ordinary Tommy as on the highest officer. He takes a keen interest in our life in the trenches, and we all feel that he's just the man to turn to in trouble, and there's not one of us who wouldn't go through fire and water for him. He never asks the impossible from us, but acts as though he could rely on us to get out of a tight corner.""-The World's Work. FOREIGN SOLDIERS OF FRANCE EVER since 1871 France has found it necessary to support her power in Africa by native soldiery, with Frenchmen scattered through their ranks and a nucleus of French regiments to give morale. Charles W. Furlong, F.R.G.S., describes them in The World's Work: THE ZOUAVES "The most historical and fabled of the native troops are the Zouaves, partly formed of French volontaires Parisiens and Bataillons de la Charte (prisoner battalions). These regiments, renowned as much for their extraordinary behavior and rascality as for their extravagant daring, were organized about 1830, soon after the Algerian conquest, and first contained only Kabyles and other natives. They are fire-eaters all, a rather short-statured, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, bull-necked, picked lot. There is hardly a hill of the Algerian atlas that has not borne witness to their agility, endurance, and wonderful fighting ability; few valleys in which they have not bivouacked; and scarcely a wood copse of corkwood or Algerian oasis through which, in their picturesque green turbans, blue jackets, and red Oriental trousers, bound at the waist with broad cummerbund, at the lower end in leather buskins, they have not flitted as skirmishers like evasive willo'-the-wisps in streaks of golden sunshine and violet shadow. SPAHIS AND CHASSEURS "The union of two elements is necessary in the African cavalry to insure |