Our uniform--or, if that is too military a word, our academical
costume--is officially announced to be "grey-green," the colour of the
sea at 7.30 in the morning, when you decide that you have forgotten
your towel and had better have a hot bath quietly at home. I don't
know how invisible we shall be as soldiers, but anchored off the
Maplin Sands we should deceive anybody. Where are the Buoys of the Old
Brigade? Ah, where indeed! Even as marines we should have our value.
Luckily, we have been practising amphibious warfare for some time. The
camp is mostly under water, and when the "Fall-in" is sounded we do it
quite easily. The "Emerge" is not so easily obeyed. But there were
drier days in December, and on one of these I made a curious
discovery.
We were having a field-day, and my side of the battle was advancing in
sections under shell-fire over fairly flat country. Every now and
then, however, we came to a small hill or group of hills. There seemed
to be no human reason for it, and I suggested to my section that we
were on the track of some new kind of mole.
"No," said James, "those are bunkers."
We looked at each anxiously and tapped our foreheads.
"It's a golf-course," he persisted.