I was fighting far away from my friends, far away from the true fronts of battle.

It was a side-show which, whatever its importance, had none of the exhilaration of the main effort.

But now we had come back to familiar ground.

We were like the Highlanders cut off at Cite St Auguste on the first day of Loos, or those Scots Guards at Festubert of whom I had heard.

Only, the others did not know of it, would never hear of it.