Others were from
London, banded together in a battalion of the Middlesex Regiment. They
gave a shock to our French friends when they arrived as a division at
the port of Boulogne.
"Name of a dog!" said the quayside loungers. "England is truly in a
bad way. She is sending out her last reserves!"
"But they are the soldiers of Lilliput!" exclaimed others.
"It is terrible that they should send these little ones," said kind-
hearted fishwives.
Under the training of General Pi, who commanded them, they became
smart and brisk in the ranks. They saluted like miniature Guardsmen,
marched with quick little steps like clockwork soldiers. It was
comical to see them strutting up and down as sentries outside
divisional headquarters, with their bayonets high above their wee
bodies. In trench warfare they did well--though the fire-step had to
be raised to let them see over the top--and in one raid captured a
German machine-gun which I saw in their hands, and hauled it back (a
heavier weight than ours) like ants struggling with a stick of straw.
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