The trench in which the class was hard at work was perfect in almost every detail, save that it lacked a back wall. This was removed for the sake of the audience. An instructor stood outside and every now and again he would toss a bomb at his pupils. He played no favorites. The good and the bad scholar each had his chance. In order to pass the course the soldier had to show that he knew what to do to meet the bomb attack. He might take shelter in the traverse; he might kick the bomb far away; or, with a master's degree in view, he might pick up the imitation bomb and hurl it far away before it could explode. Speed and steady nerves were required for this trick. An explosion might easily blow off a finger or two. Yet, after all, it was practice. Later there might be other bombs designed for bigger game than fingers.
We followed the students from bombs to bayonets. The men with the cold steel were charging into dummies marked with circles to represent spots where hits were likely to be vital. It looked for all the world like football practice and the men went after the dummies as the tacklers used to do at Soldiers' Field of an afternoon when the coach had pinned blue sweaters and white "Y's" on the straw men. There was the same severely serious spirit. In a larger field a big class was having instruction in attack. Before them were three lines of trenches protected by barbed wire ankle high. At a signal they left their trench and darted forward to the next one. Here they paused for a moment and then set sail for the second trench. At another signal they were out of that and into a third trench. From here they blazed away at some targets on the hill representing Germans and consolidated their positions. Instructors followed the charge along the road which bordered the instruction field. They mingled praise and blame, but ever they shouted for speed. "Make this go now," would be the cry, and to a luckless wight who had been upset by barbed wire and sent sprawling: "What do you mean by lying there, anyhow?"
It was a New Zealand company which I saw, and in the class were a number of Maoris. These were fine, husky men of the type seen in the Hawaiian Islands. All played the game hard, but none seemed so imaginatively stirred by it as the Maoris. They were fairly carried away by the enthusiasm of a charge, and left their trenches each time shouting at top voice. The capture of the third trench by no means satisfied them. They wanted to go on and on. If the officer had not called a halt there's no telling but that they might have invaded the next field and bayoneted the bombardiers. Over the hill there was a rattle of machine guns and beyond that a more scattering volume of musketry. We stopped and watched the men at their rifle practice.