PARK ROYAL, N.W. Empty huts, deserted parade-grounds, overgrown lawns, occasional daffodils. There in the April sunshine and showers of Peace year the Russian Relief Force was born,

Imagine the stupendous and inspiring drama of the year of tragedy, 1914, restaged in miniature.

The setting and the costumes are the same. The same crowds invade the deserted camp. Out from the obscurity of the streets of the cities and the lanes of freshening country, they come to this camp set in a suburb of London. From all borders, all counties, all shires they come, strange in their dialects, strange in their garb, strange in their first shyness. They hide, as the race ever does, emotion and feeling.

Just a handful at first-perhaps twenty or thirty; but behind and around them one sees the ghosts of the faraway days of early war. They materialise in one's vision. The arts, the professions, the trades, each pouring out its torrent of men, marching awkwardly, solemnly, clad in every variety of civilian clothing.

Then with a tremor and the

I.

queerest of pulsations in the throat, one realises the years that lie between. The mind steals back to the fateful days that marked for most the opening of the Great Adventure. One remembers those familiar battlefields - Ypres, Festubert, High Wood, Thiepval, Cambrai, on which that drama was played out and where lie its actors.

These are the ghosts of the men who have passed - the men whose splendid virility, whose promise of fruitful manhood lies in the bosom of France.

And it is here, in their silent and invisible presence, that the curtain rises on another drama-shall we call it-The Little Adventure.

Who are these men? Per

haps to the outsider's eye they look much the same as the men of 1914. They are still in mufti. Worn clothes, jackets in which the pockets droop pitiably, collars devoid of ties, ties to which no collars give effect, baggy trousers, boots thin and cracked. Derby hats of pre-war vintage, caps of faded hues, even the "decayed Homburg hat," five years older and sensibly more decayed. They still look anything but soldiers.

But there is a strangely perceptible difference. For shoulders are straighter and broader, heads more erect, and absence of slouching.

"For 'e saw the set o' my shoulders, An' I couldn't 'elp 'olding straight When me an' the other rookies Come under the barrick gate."

And in their eyes is a look— a little of hardness, a little of fatalism, and much of humour, the things that distinguish, to those who observe, the man who went from the man who did not.

Why are they here? What is it in the past that calls them back-in the memories of shell-swept roads at night, with hurrying silent men and rattling limbers-in the desolation of mud and wire seen from some post by the cold light of flares of the flies that rise from some deserted trench as one walks down it

of the scream and crash of the barrage-of red, gaping, ghastly wounds and of death.

What seek these men? Is it the spirit of adventure dominant above all else? Is it humanitarianism that leads them to succour a nation in distress? Is it that they have probed the mirage of civilian life, and buffeted and bruised they drift back to the old familiar things?

Only the inmost heart of the man can answer these questions.

They are a motley crew. Here a late Major with the Distinguished Service Order; he commanded a battery of field-guns at Ypres in 1917.

There an ex-Captain of Levat's Scouts, with the Military Cross and the Mons Star; a late R.F.C. pilot, many subalterns, ex-sergeant-majors with Distinguished Conduct Medals, quartermaster-sergeants, corporals-but private soldiers

all.

The natural question that arises is why such an expedition to North Russia was necessary or expedient. The amazing events of the closing months of 1918-the downfall of German power, the armistice, the Peace Conferencesufficed completely to occupy the public mind, and few, if any, remembered that in far away Russia a handful of British troops had since May 1918 kept Germany from acquiring and utilising the Murmansk coast as a submarine base; and further, and far more important, had arrested the flow of German troops to the Western front at a most oritical juncture—namely, the conclusion of the German offensive in the spring. From September 1917, German divisions had been transferred from Russia to France and Belgium at an average rate of six per month. But from the moment British troops landed in June to September, when the tide in France had turned and the Germans were obliged, in spite of all risks, to send reinforcements westward, not a single German division was withdrawn from Russia. During this period Hindenburg asked urgently for ten divisions to be sent to him from this

theatre, only to be told that not one could be spared. The Germans could not face the risk of a popular Russian rising.

The further query then arises as to why that British force was not withdrawn after the signing of the armistice in November 1918. In the first instance, the port of Archangel was freezing up. In the second, the internal situation in Russia demanded the continuance of such a force in the north. An Allied front protected the inhabitants of North Russia from the spreading ravages of Bolshevism—an era of savagery of which atrocities such as these are typical:

"In a property near Gomel, Bolsheviks broke into a house where the mother and her four children were dining; they cut off the mother's head and threw it in the soup tureen, then the children's, one of which they put on each plate."

"The prisoners taken out to Machouk were made to dig their own graves and buried alive. Axes were used to drive back into their living tomb any who tried to escape."

No one-least of all a nation which so recently engaged herself for a broken word-could abandon a helpless people to such a fate.

Early then in 1919 the existence of a force in North Russia was brought vividly to the realisation of the British public by the medium of the daily Press, General Ironside, commanding at Archangel, indicated in messages to the War Office that the Bolshevik forces opposing him were contemplating offensive action, with a view to acquiring the North

Russian territory, thus far intact from their devastating influence. Help was needed. Reinforcements and relief were two essentials for tired wornout men. Finally the announcement of the formation of a Russian Relief Force was made public. Officers and men, serving and demobilised, poured in to the War Office and Scotland Yard, proffering their services in any capacity. Thus the Russian Relief Force came into being.

Its task was primarily to relieve the men who had endured the rigours of the Arotic winter. But there was a far greater, a far more inspiring task ahead. The people of North Russia living under our protection were every day gaining courage and heart, and every day showed an inorease of recruits to the Russian Army which was in the process of formation by the local governments under the direotion of General Ironside at

Archangel and General Maynard at Murmansk. British troops at these ports were training and equipping these reoruits, and turning them into complete units. But in this connection it must be remembered that it is the influence and example of British grit and character that tells with all foreigners, and this was the chief factor in heartening the Russians to stand alone. It was estimated that in three or four months the Russian forces would be able to take the field by themselves. Then and then only could the British troops withdraw.

Officers and men alike, once at Park Royal, became impatient. They chafed at the delay of equipping the force, the hesitancy, the vagueness of the expedition, the lack of knowledge of the actual situation, the ignorance of prevailing conditions. An unreasonable attitude, possibly. But having volunteered to go to Russia, they wanted to go-at once. Equipping proceeded. A civilian brigade became a brigade khakied and beribboned.

The wave of restlessness grew stronger. Men grew tired of waiting, and when allowed on leave failed to return. The roll of absentees grew.

The last week of April brought news of a projected move to Sandling Camp in Kent, and finally the Brigade left Park Royal behind and settled in Sandling.

More equipping, efforts at training, all the necessary and essential precautions and preparations for service. All the fearsome inoculations for typhoid and cholera, the rigours of gas chambers, the reawakening of the spirit of discipline dormant in these men.

Finally, that last inspection and the presentation of colours by Major-General Sir Henry Rawlinson on the twentysecond day of May. Then the amazing change of month became manifest. This was no brigade of recruits. All the units were of the same character. Tanned by the sun, hardened by service

abroad, officers and men alike left no doubt as to their efficiency.

A few days later, on the 27th and the last day of May, the force left the sun-kissed county of Kent.

Over the ridge at Sandling came the morning sun, catching the gorse and broom in a blaze of gold. Down the long stony tracks from the camps poured marching bodies of laughing jesting men, rifles over one arm, kit-bags under the other, to the tune "Goodby-ee-Don't sigh-ee," heard how many times on the roads of France.

A station thronged with troops. worried railway transport officer-a harassed stationmaster-a few canteen workers-officers organising entrainment.

Then a few shouted goodbyes-a whistle-the train moves-a mighty cheer of joy and we are en route.

And so to Newcastle and Tilbury Dock, where the majority of the absentees suddenly appear. Two more arrive in what is apparently their private tugboat, when the ship is already under way; while the third and last-missing for some three weeks-is not discovered until the following morning, when he is found playing the cornet in his accustomed place in the band.

On shipboard all ideas, conversations, actions run in the deepest of grooves, even on a transport. But then all voyages were ever the same.

Ulysses, one feels sure, drank gin in the smoke-room and joined in the sweep on the day's run, and then, no doubt, tampered, to his own ends, with the patent log.

After all the parades that the army inexorably demands shall be performed between sunrise and noonday, there come the gathering of little groups, discussing in the lounge on deck, the Derby, the day's run, the midnight sun, mines, the chances of rough weather.

The laughter of men comes up from the fore well-deck. In a ring of men two marines engage in a rough-and-tumble. Two Irishmen spar with the gloves. The intensely critical spectators advise, remonstrate, cheer, and laugh. Their plaudits urge the oombatants to Trojan efforts.

Crack-kk-kk-kk-kk. From the stern comes the vicious rattle of a Lewis gun. Packing - cases make wonderful targets at sea. But the shooting is too good. They last but a few seconds and then are shattered, to become the floatsam and jetsam of the restless waters.

The dinner bugle goes. There is a rush on deck, a falling in of men in orderly ranks. In an instant the men disappear and the decks are silent and deserted, save for an occasional sentry pacing to and fro, or an orderly officer going to or coming from duties.

Divine service on a foggy Sunday morning. A short sermen from the senior chaplain. "The sea is His, and He

made it." A raucous "Hear, hear," from the ship's syren. Syrens are most understanding instruments. "But the enemy has held it for four years,' goes on the reverend.

The syren shrieks twice in spirited protest. The representative of H. M. Navy on board looks quizzically at the speaker and turns his eyes seaward with a smile. Then the ending, "Now to God the Father

More blasts from the syren, drowning for an instant the sound of men's voices raised in hymnal praise-then a hushed silence-a blessing-the hymn for His Majesty-sharp words of command-quick movements of men.

Divine service is over.