F. O. Langley

“ Constant efforts to keep a watch in the dark are trying to the nerves, and when something substantial does emerge which one may get a grip on... what use is it for an officer to say that no violence is required and enough is done for present purposes if the enemy is successfully observed and quietly apprehended? The first enemy to approach turned out, on arrest, to be just an innocuous cow ”

“ The recruit is an excellent fellow, whose only fault is that he didn't start before. Now and then he is a plutocrat, as I have found to my cost. It was my first job to prearrange the lodging of two hundred of them in their temporary billet, an unoccupied mansion originally designed to house twenty persons at the outside. ”

“ Outpost companies, it must be remembered, do their work at night. I don't know, Charles, whether you have ever sat under a hedge for hours on end in the dark, waiting the approach of the enemy. It must be bad enough in real warfare, where there is a chance of his turning up ”

“ When I did arrive on the scene it was my heartrending duty to explain to Privates Anstruther and Vernon that the reason why they couldn't find their bedroom was because they had filled it with their motor-cars. But it is wonderful how people can settle down to anything ”