And when one realised what the age of these men must be, who were wearing decorations of Egyptian and Indian frontier campaigns, with not a few Zulu ribbons among them, one marvelled at the skill and strength with which the old fellows wielded pick and shovel.

They could not march any great distance, and we helped them along in motor buses; but once set them down by their tracks, though the road might be chaos and the shell-holes innumerable, obstacles were cleared away, holes filled up, and the new surface well and truly laid with a magical rapidity....
The idea of taking shelter never seemed to occur to them; they openly rejoiced at being under fire....

Perhaps though they mended our roads and gave us easy walking, they helped us most by the quiet steadfastness of their example.

One never saw them toiling away in the deathtrap of the Ypres salient without realising that they were the fathers of our generation, men who had already spent themselves in Britain's cause when we were children, and had now come out to serve her again, at her call, and to watch how we young ones played up." Some more recent notes from G.H.Q.dwell warmly on the invaluable services rendered by the Labour Corps in the Battle of Cambrai, November, 1917, in the defensive battle of last spring, and in the autumn attacks which ended the war.

In the Cambrai attack the Labour men were concentrated 1,000 yards behind the line, so as to be ready for immediate advance.