"What for?" Bogle's voice dropped to a ghostly whisper. "Has it ever occurred to you, my mannie, what would happen tae the English—if Scotland was tae make a separate peace?"

And Mr. Bogle retired, not before it was time, within the sheltering portals of the estaminet, where not less than seven inarticulate but appreciative fellow-countrymen offered him refreshment.



X

FULL CHORUS

I

An Observation Post—or "O Pip," in the mysterious patois of the Buzzers—is not exactly the spot that one would select either for spaciousness or accessibility. It may be situated up a chimney or up a tree, or down a tunnel bored through a hill. But it certainly enables you to see something of your enemy; and that, in modern warfare, is a very rare and valuable privilege.

Of late the scene-painter's art—technically known as camouflage—has raised the concealment of batteries and their observation posts to the realm of the uncanny. According to Major Wagstaffe, you can now disguise anybody as anything. For instance, you can make up a battery of six-inch guns to look like a flock of sheep, and herd them into action browsing. Or you can despatch a scouting party across No Man's Land dressed up as pillar-boxes, so that the deluded Hun, instead of opening fire with a machine-gun, will merely post letters in them—valuable letters, containing military secrets. Lastly, and more important still, you can disguise yourself to look like nothing at all, and in these days of intensified artillery fire it is very seldom that nothing at all is hit.

The particular O Pip with which we are concerned at present, however, is a German post—or was a fortnight ago, before the opening of the Battle of the Somme.

For nearly two years the British Armies on the Western Front have been playing for time. They have been sticking their toes in and holding their ground, with numerically inferior forces and inadequate artillery support, against a nation in arms which has set out, with forty years of preparation at its back, to sweep the earth. We have held them, and now der Tag has come for us. The deal has passed into our hand at last. A fortnight ago, ready for the first time to undertake the offensive on a grand and prolonged scale,—Loos was a mere reconnaissance compared with this,—the New British Army went over the parapet shoulder to shoulder with the most heroic Army in the world—the Army of France—and attacked over a sixteen-mile front in the Valley of the Somme.

It was a critical day for the Allies: certainly it was a most critical day in the history of the British Army. For on that day an answer had to be given to a very big question indeed. Hitherto we had been fighting on the defensive—unready, uphill, against odds. It would have been no particular discredit to us had we failed to hold our line. But we had held it, and more. Now, at last, we were ready—as ready as we were ever likely to be. We had the men, the guns, and the munitions. We were in a position to engage the enemy on equal, and more than equal, terms. And the question that the British Empire had to answer in that day, the First of July 1916, was this: "Are these new amateur armies of ours, raised, trained, and equipped in less than two years, with nothing in the way of military tradition to uphold them—nothing but the steady courage of their race: are they a match for, and more than a match for, that grim machine-made, iron-bound host that lies waiting for them along that line of Picardy hills? Because if they are not, we cannot win this war. We can only make a stalemate of it."

We, looking back now over a space of twelve months, know how our boys answered that question. In the greatest and longest battle that the world had yet seen, that Army of city clerks, Midland farm-lads, Lancashire mill-hands, Scottish miners, and Irish corner-boys, side by side with their great-hearted brethren from Overseas, stormed positions which had been held impregnable for two years, captured seventy thousand prisoners, reclaimed several hundred square miles of the sacred soil of France, and smashed once and for all the German-fostered fable of the invincibility of the German Army. It was good to have lived and suffered during those early and lean years, if only to be present at their fulfilment.

But at this moment the battle was only beginning, and the bulk of their astounding achievement was still to come. Nevertheless, in the cautious and modest estimate of their Commander-in-Chief, they had already done something.

After ten days and nights of continuous fighting, said the first official report, our troops have completed the methodical capture of the whole of the enemy's first system of defence on a front of fourteen thousand yards. This system of defence consisted of numerous and continuous lines of fire trenches, extending to depths of from two thousand to four thousand yards, and included five strongly fortified villages, numerous heavily entrenched woods, and a large number of immensely strong redoubts. The capture of each of these trenches represented an operation of some importance, and the whole of them are now in our hands.

Quite so. One feels, somehow, that Berlin would have got more out of such a theme.

* * * * *

Now let us get back to our O Pip. If you peep over the shoulder of Captain Leslie, the gunner observing officer, as he directs the fire of his battery, situated some thousands of yards in rear, through the medium of map, field-glass, and telephone, you will obtain an excellent view of to-morrow's field of battle. Present in the O Pip are Colonel Kemp, Wagstaffe, Bobby Little, and Angus M'Lachlan. The latter had been included in the party because, to quote his Commanding Officer, "he would have burst into tears if he had been left out."

Overhead roared British shells of every kind and degree of unpleasantness, for the ground in front was being "prepared" for the coming assault. The undulating landscape, running up to a low ridge on the skyline four miles away, was spouting smoke in all directions—sometimes black, sometimes green, and sometimes, where bursting shell and brick-dust intermingled, blood-red. Beyond the ridge all-conquering British aeroplanes occupied the firmament, observing for "mother" and "granny" and signalling encouragement or reproof to these ponderous but sprightly relatives as their shells hit or missed the target.

"Yes, sir," replied Leslie to Colonel Kemp's question, "that is Longueval, on the slope opposite, with the road running through on the way to Flers, over the skyline. That is Delville Wood on its right. As you see, the guns are concentrating on both places. That is Waterlot Farm, on this side of the wood—a sugar refinery. Regular nest of machine-guns there, I'm told."

"No doubt we shall be able to confirm the rumour to-morrow," said Colonel Kemp drily. "That is Bernafay Wood on our right, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir. We hold the whole of that. The pear-shaped wood out beyond it—it looks as if it were joined on, but the two are quite separate really—is Trones Wood. It has changed hands several times. Just at present I don't think we hold more than the near end. Further away, half-right, you can see Guillemont."

"In that case," remarked Wagstaffe, "our right flank would appear to be strongly supported by the enemy."

"Yes. We are in a sort of right-angled salient here. We have the enemy on our front and our right. In fact, we form the extreme right of the attacking front. Our left is perfectly secure, as we now hold Mametz Wood and Contalmaison. There they are." He waved his glass to the northwest. "When the attack takes place, I understand that our Division will go straight ahead, for Longueval and Delville Wood, while the next Division makes a lateral thrust out to the right, to push the Boche out of Trones Wood and cover our flank."

"I believe that is so," said the Colonel. "Bobby, take a good look at the approaches to Longueval. That is the scene of to-morrow's constitutional."

Bobby and Angus obediently scanned the village through their glasses. Probably they did not learn much. One bombarded French village is very like another bombarded French village. A cowering assemblage of battered little houses; a pitiful little main street, with its eviscerated shops and estaminets; a shattered church-spire. Beyond that, an enclosure of splintered stumps that was once an orchard. Below all, cellars, reinforced with props and sandbags, and filled with machine-guns. Voila tout!

Presently the Gunner Captain passed word down to the telephone operator to order the battery to cease fire.

"Knocking off?" inquired Wagstaffe.

"For the present, yes. We are only registering this morning. Not all our batteries are going at once, either. We don't want Brother Boche to know our strength until we tune up for the final chorus. We calculate that—"

"There is a comfortable sense of decency and order about the way we fight nowadays," said Colonel Kemp. "It is like working out a problem in electrical resistance by a nice convenient algebraical formula. Very different from the state of things last year, when we stuck it out by employing rule of thumb and hanging on by our eyebrows."

"The only problem we can't quite formulate is the machine-gun," said Leslie. The Boche's dug-outs here are thirty feet deep. When crumped by our artillery he withdraws his infantry and leaves his machine-gunners behind, safe underground. Then, when our guns lift and the attack comes over, his machine-gunners appear on the surface, hoist their guns after them with a sort of tackle arrangement, and get to work on a prearranged band of fire. The infantry can't do them in until No Man's Land is crossed, and—well, they don't all get across, that's all! However, I have heard rumours—"

"So have we all," said Colonel Kemp.

"I forgot to tell you, Colonel," interposed Wagstaffe, "that I met young Osborne at Divisional Headquarters last night. You remember, he left us some time ago to join the Hush! Hush! Brigade."

"I remember," said the Colonel.

By this time the party, including the Gunner Captain, were filing along a communication trench, lately the property of some German gentlemen, on their way back to headquarters.

"Did he tell you anything, Wagstaffe?" continued Colonel Kemp.

"Not much. Apparently the time of the H.H.B. is not yet. But he made an appointment with me for this evening—in the gloaming, so to speak. He is sending a car. If all he says is true, the Boche Emma Gee is booked for an eye-opener in a few weeks' time."

II

That evening a select party of sight-seers were driven to a secluded spot behind the battle line. Here they were met by Master Osborne, obviously inflated with some important matter.

"I've got leave from my C.O. to show you the sights, sir," he announced to Colonel Kemp. "If you will all stand here and watch that wood on the opposite side of this clearing, you may see something. We don't show ourselves much except in late evening, so this is our parade hour."

The little group took up its appointed stand and waited in the gathering dusk. In the east the sky was already twinkling with intermittent Verey lights. All around the British guns were thundering forth their hymns of hate—full-throated now, for the hour for the next great assault was approaching.

Wagstaffe's thoughts went back to a certain soft September night last year, when he and Blaikie had stood on the eastern outskirts of Bethune listening to a similar overture—the prelude to the Battle of Loos. But this overture was ten times more awful, and, from a material British point of view, ten times more inspiring. It would have thrilled old Blaikie's fighting spirit, thought Wagstaffe. But Loos had taken his friend from him, and he, Wagstaffe, only was left. What did fate hold in store for him to-morrow? he wondered. And Bobby? They had both escaped marvellously so far. Well, better men had gone before them. Perhaps—

Fingers of steel bit into his biceps muscle, and the excited whinny of Angus M'Lachlan besought him to look!

Down in the forest something stirred. But it was not the note of a bird, as the song would have us believe. From the depths of the wood opposite came a crackling, crunching sound, as of some prehistoric beast forcing its way through tropical undergrowth. And then, suddenly, out from the thinning edge there loomed a monster—a monstrosity. It did not glide, it did not walk. It wallowed. It lurched, with now and then a laborious heave of its shoulders. It fumbled its way over a low bank matted with scrub. It crossed a ditch, by the simple expedient of rolling the ditch out flat, and waddled forward. In its path stood a young tree. The monster arrived at the tree and laid its chin lovingly against the stem. The tree leaned back, crackled, and assumed a horizontal position. In the middle of the clearing, twenty yards farther on, gaped an enormous shell-crater, a present from the Kaiser. Into this the creature plunged blindly, to emerge, panting and puffing, on the farther side. Then it stopped. A magic opening appeared in its stomach, from which emerged, grinning, a British subaltern and his grimy associates.

And that was our friends' first encounter with a "Tank." The secret—unlike most secrets in this publicity-ridden war—had been faithfully kept; so far the Hush! Hush! Brigade had been little more than a legend even to the men high up. Certainly the omniscient Hun received the surprise of his life when, in the early mist of a September morning some weeks later, a line of these selfsame tanks burst for the first time upon his incredulous vision, waddling grotesquely up the hill to the ridge which had defied the British infantry so long and so bloodily—there to squat complacently down on the top of the enemy's machine-guns, or spout destruction from her own up and down beautiful trenches which had never been intended for capture. In fact, Brother Boche was quite plaintive about the matter. He described the employment of such engines as wicked and brutal, and opposed to the recognised usages of warfare. When one of these low-comedy vehicles (named the Creme-de-Menthe) ambled down the main street of the hitherto impregnable village of Flers, with hysterical British Tommies slapping her on the back, he appealed to the civilised world to step in and forbid the combination of vulgarism and barbarity.

"Let us at least fight like gentlemen," said the Hun, with simple dignity. "Let us stick to legitimate military devices—the murder of women and children, and the emission of chlorine gas. But Tanks—no! One must draw the line somewhere!"

But the ill-bred Creme-de-Menthe took no notice. None whatever. She simply went waddling on—towards Berlin.

"An experiment, of course," commented Colonel Kemp, as they returned to headquarters—"a fantastic experiment. But I wish they were ready now. I would give something to see one of them leading the way into action to-morrow. It might mean saving the lives of a good many of my boys."



XI

THE LAST SOLO

It was dawn on Saturday morning, and the second phase of the Battle of the Somme was more than twenty-four hours old. The programme had opened with a night attack, always the most difficult and uncertain of enterprises, especially for soldiers who were civilians less than two years ago. But no undertaking is too audacious for men in whose veins the wine of success is beginning to throb. And this undertaking, this hazardous gamble, had succeeded all along the line. During the past day and night, more than three miles of the German second system of defences, from Bazentin le Petit to the edge of Delville Wood, had received their new tenants; and already long streams of not altogether reluctant Hun prisoners were being escorted to the rear by perspiring but cheerful gentlemen with fixed bayonets.

Meanwhile—in case such of the late occupants of the line as were still at large should take a fancy to revisit their previous haunts, working-parties of infantry, pioneers, and sappers were toiling at full pressure to reverse the parapets, run out barbed wire, and bestow machine-guns in such a manner as to produce a continuous lattice-work of fire along the front of the captured position.

All through the night the work had continued. As a result, positions were now tolerably secure, the intrepid "Buzzers" had included the newly grafted territory in the nervous system of the British Expeditionary Force, and Battalion Headquarters and Supply Depots had moved up to their new positions.

To Colonel Kemp and his Adjutant Cockerell, ensconced in a dug-out thirty feet deep, furnished with a real bed, electric-light fittings, and ornaments obviously made in Germany, entered Major Wagstaffe, encrusted with mud, but as imperturbable as ever. He saluted.

"Good-morning, sir. You seem to have struck a cushie little home time."

"Yes. The Boche officer harbours no false modesty about acknowledging his desire for creature comforts. That is where he scores off people like you and me, who pretend we like sleeping in mud. Have you been round the advanced positions?"

"Yes. There is some pretty hard fighting going on in the village itself—the Boche still holds the north-west corner—and in the wood on the right. 'A' Company are holding a line of broken-down cottages on our right front, but they can't make any further move until they get more bombs. The Boche is occupying various buildings opposite, but in no great strength at present. However, he seems to have plenty of machine-guns."

"I have sent up more bombs," said the Colonel. "What about 'B' Company?"

"'B' have reached their objective, and consolidated. 'C' and 'D' are lying close up, ready to go forward in support when required. I think 'A' could do with a little assistance."

"I don't want to send up 'C' and 'D'," replied the Colonel, "until the Divisional Reserve arrives. The Brigade has just telephoned through that reinforcements are on the way. When they get here, we can afford to stuff in the whole battalion. Are 'A' Company capable of handling the situation at present?"

"Yes, I think so. Little is directing his platoons from a convenient cellar. He was in touch with them all when I left. But it is possible that the Boche may make a rush when it grows a bit lighter. At present he is too demoralised to attempt anything beyond intermittent machine-gun fire."

Colonel Kemp turned to Cockerell.

"Get Captain Little on the telephone," he said, "and tell him, if the enemy displays any disposition to counter-attack, to let me know at once." Then he turned to Wagstaffe, and asked the question which always lurks furtively on the tongue of a commanding officer.

"Many—casualties?"

"'A' Company have caught it rather badly crossing the open. 'B' got off lightly. Glen is commanding them now: Waddell was killed leading his men in the rush to the final objective."

Colonel Kemp sighed.

"Another good boy gone—veteran, rather. I must write to his wife. Fairly newly married, I fancy?"

"Four months," said Wagstaffe briefly.

"What was his Christian name, do you know?"

"Walter, I think, sir," said Cockerell.

Colonel Kemp, amid the stress of battle, found time to enter a note in his pocket-diary to that effect.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, up in the line, 'A' Company were holding on grimly to what are usually described as "certain advanced elements" of the village.

Village fighting is a confused and untidy business, but it possesses certain redeeming features. The combatants are usually so inextricably mixed up that the artillery are compelled to refrain from participation. That comes later, when you have cleared the village of the enemy, and his guns are preparing the ground for the inevitable counter-attack.

So far 'A' Company had done nobly. From the moment when they had lined up before Montauban in the gross darkness preceding yesterday's dawn until the moment when Bobby Little led them in one victorious rush into the outskirts of the village, they had never encountered a setback. By sunset they had penetrated some way farther; now creeping stealthily forward under the shelter of a broken wall to hurl bombs into the windows of an occupied cottage; now climbing precariously to some commanding position in order to open fire with a Lewis gun; now making a sudden dash across an open space. Such work offered peculiar opportunities to small and well-handled parties—opportunities of which Bobby Little's veterans availed themselves right readily.

Angus M'Lachlan, for instance, accompanied by a small following of seasoned experts, had twice rounded up parties of the enemy in cellars, and had despatched the same back to Headquarters with his compliments and a promise of more. Mucklewame and four men had bombed their way along a communication trench leading to one of the side streets of the village—a likely avenue for a counter-attack—and having reached the end of the trench, had built up a sandbag barricade, and had held the same against the assaults of hostile bombers until a Vickers machine-gun had arrived in charge of an energetic subaltern of that youthful but thriving organisation, the Suicide Club, or Machine-Gun Corps, and closed the street to further Teutonic traffic.

During the night there had been periods of quiescence, devoted to consolidation, and here and there to snatches of uneasy slumber. Angus M'Lachlan, fairly in his element, had trailed his enormous length in and out of the back-yards and brick-heaps of the village, visiting every point in his irregular line, testing defences; bestowing praise; and ensuring that every man had his share of food and rest. Unutterably grimy but inexpressibly cheerful, he reported progress to Major Wagstaffe when that nocturnal rambler visited him in the small hours.

"Well, Angus, how goes it?" inquired Wagstaffe.

"We have won the match, sir," replied Angus with simple seriousness. "We are just playing the bye now!"

And with that he crawled away, with the unnecessary stealth of a small boy playing robbers, to encourage his dour paladins to further efforts.

"We shall probably be relieved this evening," he explained to them, "and we must make everything secure. It would never do to leave our new positions untenable by other troops. They might not be so reliable"—with a paternal smile—"as you! Now, our right flank is not safe yet. We can improve the position very much if we can secure that estaminet, standing up like an island among those ruined houses on our right front. You see the sign, Aux Bons Fermiers, over the door. The trouble is that a German machine-gun is sweeping the intervening space—and we cannot see the gun! There it goes again. See the brick-dust fly! Keep down! They are firing mainly across our front, but a stray bullet may come this way."

The platoon crouched low behind their improvised rampart of brick rubble, while machine-gun bullets swept low, with misleading claquement, along the space in front of them, from some hidden position on their right. Presently the firing stopped. Brother Boche was merely "loosing off a belt," as a precautionary measure, at commendably regular intervals.

"I cannot locate that gun," said Angus impatiently. "Can you, Corporal M'Snape?"

"It is not in the estamint itself, sirr," replied M'Snape. ("Estamint" is as near as our rank and file ever get to estaminet.) "It seems to be mounted some place higher up the street. I doubt they cannot see us themselves—only the ground in front of us."

"If we could reach the estaminet itself," said Angus thoughtfully, "we could get a more extended view. Sergeant Mucklewame, select ten men, including three bombers, and follow me. I am going to find a jumping-off place. The Lewis gun too."

Presently the little party were crouching round their officer in a sheltered position on the right of the line—which for the moment appeared to be "in the air." Except for the intermittent streams of machine-gun fire, and an occasional shrapnel-burst overhead, all was quiet. The enemy's counter-attack was not yet ready.

"Now listen carefully," said Angus, who had just finished scribbling a despatch. "First of all, you, Bogle, take this message to the telephone, and get it sent to Company Headquarters. Now you others. We will wait till that machine-gun has fired another belt. Then, the moment it has finished, while they are getting out the next belt, I will dash across to the estaminet over there. M'Snape, you will come with me, but no one else—yet. If the estaminet seems capable of being held, I will signal to you, Sergeant Mucklewame, and you will send your party across, in driblets, not forgetting the Lewis gun. By that time I may have located the German machine-gun, so we should be able to knock it out with the Lewis."

Further speech was cut short by a punctual fantasia from the gun in question. Angus and M'Snape crouched behind the shattered wall, awaiting their chance. The firing ceased.

"Now!" whispered Angus.

Next moment officer and corporal were flying across the open, and before the mechanical Boche gunner could jerk the new belt into position, both had found sanctuary within the open doorway of the half-ruined estaminet.

Nay, more than both; for as the panting pair flung themselves into shelter, a third figure, short and stout, in an ill-fitting kilt, tumbled heavily through the doorway after them. Simultaneously a stream of machine-gun bullets went storming past.

"Just in time!" observed Angus, well pleased. "Bogle, what are you doing here?"

"I was given tae unnerstand, sirr," replied Mr. Bogle calmly, "when I jined the regiment, that in action an officer's servant stands by his officer."

"That is true," conceded Angus; "but you had no right to follow me against orders. Did you not hear me say that no one but Corporal M'Snape was to come?"

"No, sirr. I doubt I was away at the 'phone."

"Well, now you are here, wait inside this doorway, where you can see Sergeant Mucklewame's party, and look out for signals. M'Snape, let us find that machine-gun."

The pair made their way to the hitherto blind side of the building, and cautiously peeped through a much-perforated shutter in the living-room.

"Do you see it, sirr?" inquired M'Snape eagerly.

Angus chuckled.

"See it? Fine! It is right in the open, in the middle of the street. Look!"

He relinquished his peep-hole. The German machine-gun was mounted in the street itself, behind an improvised barrier of bricks and sandbags. It was less than a hundred yards away, sited in a position which, though screened from the view of Angus's platoon farther down, enabled it to sweep all the ground in front of the position. This it was now doing with great intensity, for the brief public appearance of Angus and M'Snape had effectually converted intermittent into continuous fire.

"We must get the Lewis gun over at once," muttered Angus. "It can knock that breastwork to pieces."

He crossed the house again, to see if any of Mucklewame's men had arrived.

They had not. The man with the Lewis gun was lying dead halfway across the street, with his precious weapon on the ground beside him. Two other men, both wounded, were crawling back whence they came, taking what cover they could from the storm of bullets which whizzed a few inches over their flinching bodies.

Angus hastily semaphored to Mucklewame to hold his men in check for the present. Then he returned to the other side of the house.

"How many men are serving that gun?" he said to M'Snape. "Can you see?"

"Only two, sirr, I think. I cannot see them, but that wee breastwork will not cover more than a couple of men."

"Mphm," observed Angus thoughtfully. "I expect they have been left behind to hold on. Have you a bomb about you?"

The admirable M'Snape produced from his pocket a Mills grenade, and handed it to his superior.

"Just the one, sirr," he said.

"Go you," commanded Angus, his voice rising to a more than usually Highland inflection, "and semaphore to Mucklewame that when he hears the explosion of this"—he pulled out the safety-pin of the grenade and gripped the grenade itself in his enormous paw—"followed, probably, by the temporary cessation of the machine-gun, he is to bring his men over here in a bunch, as hard as they can pelt. Put it as briefly as you can, but make sure he understands. He has a good signaller with him. Send Bogle to report when you have finished. Now repeat what I have said to you.... That's right. Carry on!"

M'Snape was gone. Angus, left alone, pensively restored the safety-pin to the grenade, and laid the grenade upon the ground beside him. Then he proceeded to write a brief letter in his field message-book. This he placed in an envelope which he took from his breast pocket. The envelope was already addressed—to the Reverend Neil M'Lachlan, The Manse, in a very remote Highland village. (Angus had no mother.) He closed the envelope, initialled it, and buttoned it up in his breast pocket again. After that he took up his grenade and proceeded to make a further examination of the premises. Presently he found what he wanted; and by the time Bogle arrived to announce that Sergeant Mucklewame had signalled "message understood," his arrangements were complete.

"Stay by this small hole in the wall, Bogle," he said, "and the moment the Lewis gun arrives tell them to mount it here and open fire on the enemy gun."

He left the room, leaving Bogle alone, to listen to the melancholy rustle of peeling wall-paper within and the steady crackling of bullets without. But when, peering through the improvised loophole, he next caught sight of his officer, Angus had emerged from the house by the cellar window, and was creeping with infinite caution behind the shelter of what had once been the wall of the estaminet's back-yard (but was now an uneven bank of bricks, averaging two feet high), in the direction of the German machine-gun. The gun, oblivious of the danger now threatening its right front, continued to fire steadily and hopefully down the street.

Slowly, painfully, Angus crawled on, until he found himself within the right angle formed by the corner of the yard. He could go no further without being seen. Between him and the German gun lay the cobbled surface of the street, offering no cover whatsoever except one mighty shell-crater, situated midway between Angus and the gun, and full to the brim with rainwater.

A single peep over the wall gave him his bearings. The gun was too far away to be reached by a grenade, even when thrown by Angus M'Lachlan. Still, it would create a diversion. It was a time bomb. He would—

He stretched out his long arm to its full extent behind him, gave one mighty overarm sweep, and with all the crackling strength of his mighty sinews, hurled the grenade.

It fell into the exact centre of the flooded shell-crater.

Angus said something under his breath which would have shocked a disciple of Kultur. Fortunately the two German gunners did not hear him. But they observed the splash fifty yards away, and it relieved them from ennui, for they were growing tired of firing at nothing. They had not seen the grenade thrown, and were a little puzzled as to the cause of the phenomenon.

Four seconds later their curiosity was more than satisfied. With a muffled roar, the shell-hole suddenly, spouted its liquid contents and other debris straight to the heavens, startling them considerably and entirely obscuring their vision.

A moment later, with an exultant yell, Angus M'Lachlan was upon them. He sprang into their vision out of the descending cascade—a towering, terrible, kilted figure, bare-headed and Berserk mad. He was barely forty yards away.

Initiative is not the forte of the Teuton. Number One of the German gun mechanically traversed his weapon four degrees to the right and continued to press the thumb-piece. Mud and splinters of brick sprang up round Angus's feet; but still he came on. He was not twenty yards away now. The gunner, beginning to boggle between waiting and bolting, fumbled at his elevating gear, but Angus was right on him before his thumbs got back to work. Then indeed the gun spoke out with no uncertain voice, for perhaps two seconds. After that it ceased fire altogether.

Almost simultaneously there came a triumphant roar lower down the street, as Mucklewame and his followers dashed obliquely across into the estaminet. Mucklewame himself was carrying the derelict Lewis gun. In the doorway stood the watchful M'Snape.

"This way, quick!" he shouted. "We have the Gairman gun spotted, and the officer is needing the Lewis!"

But M'Snape was wrong. The Lewis was not required.

A few moments later, in the face of brisk sniping from the houses higher up the street, James Bogle, officer's servant,—a member of that despised class which, according to the Bandar-log at home, spend the whole of its time pressing its master's trousers and smoking his cigarettes somewhere back in billets,—led out a stretcher party to the German gun. Number One had been killed by a shot from Angus's revolver. Number Two had adopted Hindenburg tactics, and was no more to be seen. Angus himself was lying, stone dead, a yard from the muzzle of the gun which he, single-handed, had put out of action.

His men carried him back to the Estaminet aux Bons Fermiers, with the German gun, which was afterwards employed to good purpose during the desperate days of attacking and counter-attacking which ensued before the village was finally secured. They laid him in the inner room, and proceeded to put the estaminet in a state of defence—ready to hold the same against all comers until such time as the relieving Division should take over, and they themselves be enabled, under the kindly cloak of darkness, to carry back their beloved officer to a more worthy resting-place.

In the left-hand breast pocket of Angus's tunic they found his last letter to his father. Two German machine-gun bullets had passed through it. It was forwarded with a covering letter, by Colonel Kemp. In the letter Angus's commanding officer informed Neil M'Lachlan that his son had been recommended posthumously for the highest honour that the King bestows upon his soldiers.

* * * * *

But for the moment Mucklewame's little band had other work to occupy them. Shelling had recommenced; the enemy were mustering in force behind the village; and presently a series of counter-attacks were launched. They were successfully repelled, in the first instance by the remainder of "A" Company, led in person by Bobby Little, and, when the final struggle came, by the Battalion Reserve under Major Wagstaffe. And throughout the whole grim struggle which ensued, the Estaminet aux Bons Fermiers, tenanted by some of our oldest friends, proved itself the head and corner of the successful defence.



XII

RECESSIONAL

I

Two steamers lie at opposite sides of the dock. One is painted a most austere and unobtrusive grey; she is obviously a vessel with no desire to advertise her presence on the high seas. In other words, a transport. The other is dazzling white, ornamented with a good deal of green, supplemented by red. She makes an attractive picture in the early morning sun. Even by night you could not miss her, for she goes about her business with her entire hull outlined in red lights, regatta fashion, with a great luminous Red Cross blazing on either counter. Not even the Commander of a U-boat could mistake her for anything but what she is—a hospital ship.

First, let us walk round to where the grey ship is discharging her cargo. The said cargo consists of about a thousand unwounded German prisoners.

With every desire to be generous to a fallen foe, it is quite impossible to describe them as a prepossessing lot. Not one man walks like a soldier; they shamble. Naturally, they are dirty and unshaven,. So are the wounded men on the white ship: but their outstanding characteristic is an invincible humanity. Beneath the mud and blood they are men—white men. But this strange throng are grey—like their ship. With their shifty eyes and curiously shaped heads, they look like nothing human. They move like overdriven beasts. We realise now why it is that the German Army has to attack in mass.

They pass down the gangway, and are shepherded into form in the dock shed by the Embarkation Staff, with exactly the same silent briskness that characterises the R.A.M.C., over the way. Their guard, with fixed bayonets, exhibit no more or no less concern over them than over half-a-dozen Monday morning malefactors paraded for Orderly Room. Presently they will move off, possibly through the streets of the town; probably they will pass by folk against whose kith and kin they have employed every dirty trick possible in warfare. But there will be no demonstration: there never has been. As a nation we possess a certain number of faults, on which we like to dwell. But we have one virtue at least—we possess a certain sense of proportion; and we are not disposed to make subordinates suffer because we cannot, as yet, get at the principals.

They make a good haul. Fifteen German regiments are here represented—possibly more, for some have torn off their shoulder-straps to avoid identification. Some of the units are thinly represented; others more generously. One famous Prussian regiment appears to have thrown its hand in to the extent of about five hundred.

Still, as they stand there, filthy, forlorn, and dazed, one suddenly realises the extreme appropriateness of a certain reference in the Litany to All Prisoners and Captives.

II

We turn to the hospital ship.

Two great 'brows,' or covered gangways, connect her with her native land. Down these the stretchers are beginning to pass, having been raised from below decks by cunning mechanical devices which cause no jar; and are being conveyed into the cool shade of the dock-shed. Here they are laid in neat rows upon the platform, ready for transfer to the waiting hospital train. Everything is a miracle of quietness and order. The curious public are afar off, held aloof by dock-gates. (They are there in force to-day, partly to cheer the hospital trains as they pass out, partly for reasons connected with the grey-painted ship.) In the dock-shed, organisation and method reign supreme. The work has been going on without intermission for several days and nights; and still the great ships come. The Austurias is outside, waiting for a place at the dock. The Lanfranc is half-way across the English Channel; and there are rumours that the mighty Britannic[1] has selected this, the busiest moment in the opening fortnight of the Somme Battle, to arrive with a miscellaneous and irrelevant cargo of sick and wounded from the Mediterranean. But there is no fuss. The R.A.M.C. Staff Officers, unruffled and cheery, control everything, apparently by a crook of the finger. The stretcher-bearers do their work with silent aplomb.

[Footnote 1: These three hospital ships were all subsequently sunk by German submarines.]

The occupants of the stretchers possess the almost universal feature of a six days' beard—always excepting those who are of an age which is not troubled by such manly accretions. They lie very still—not with the stillness of exhaustion or dejection, but with the comfortable resignation of men who have made good and have suffered in the process; but who now, with their troubles well behind them, are enduring present discomfort under the sustaining prospect of clean beds, chicken diet, and ultimate tea-parties. Such as possess them are wearing Woodbine stumps upon the lower lip.

They are quite ready to compare notes. Let us approach, and listen, to a heavily bandaged gentleman who—so the label attached to him informs us—is Private Blank, of the Manchesters, suffering from three "G.S." machine-gun bullet wounds.

"Did the Fritzes run? Yes—they run all right! The last lot saved us trouble by running towards us—with their 'ands up! But their machine-guns—they gave us fair 'Amlet till we got across No Man's Land. After that we used the baynit, and they didn't give us no more vexatiousness. Where did we go in? Oh, near Albert. Our objective was Mary's Court, or some such place." (It is evident that the Battle of the Somme is going to add some fresh household words to our war vocabulary. 'Wipers' is a veteran by this time: 'Plugstreet,' 'Booloo,' and 'Armintears' are old friends. We must now make room for 'Monty Ban,' 'La Bustle,' 'Mucky Farm,' 'Lousy Wood,' and 'Martinpush.')

"What were your prisoners like?"

"'Alf clemmed," said the man from Manchester.

"No rations for three days," explained a Northumberland Fusilier close by. One of his arms was strapped to his side, but the other still clasped to his bosom a German helmet. A British Tommy will cheerfully shed a limb or two in the execution of his duty, but not all the might and majesty of the Royal Army Medical Corps can force him to relinquish a fairly earned 'souvenir.' In fact, owing to certain unworthy suspicions as to the true significance of the initials, "R.A.M.C.," he has been known to refuse chloroform.

"They couldn't get nothing up to them for four days, on account of our artillery fire," he added contentedly.

"'Barrage,' my lad!" amended a rather superior person with a lance-corporal's stripe and a bandaged foot.

Indeed, all are unanimous in affirming that our artillery preparation was a tremendous affair. Listen to this group of officers sunning themselves upon the upper deck. They are 'walking cases,' and must remain on board, with what patience they may, until all the'stretcher cases' have been evacuated.

"Loos was child's play to it," says one—a member of a certain immortal, or at least irrepressible Division which has taken part in every outburst of international unpleasantness since the Marne. "The final hour was absolute pandemonium. And when our new trench-mortar batteries got to work too,—at sixteen to the dozen,—well, it was bad enough for us; but what it must have been like at the business end of things, Lord knows! For a few minutes I was almost a pro-Boche!"

Other items of intelligence are gleaned. The weather was 'rotten': mud-caked garments corroborate this statement. The wire, on the whole, was well and truly cut to pieces everywhere; though there were spots at which the enemy contrived to repair it. Finally, ninety per cent. of the casualties during the assault were due to machine-gun fire.

But the fact most clearly elicited by casual conversation is this—that the more closely you engage in a battle, the less you know about its progress. This ship is full of officers and men who were in the thick of things for perhaps forty-eight hours on end, but who are quite likely to be utterly ignorant of what was going on round the next traverse in the trench which they had occupied. The wounded Gunners are able to give them a good deal of information. One F.O.O. saw the French advance.

"It was wonderful to see them go in," he said. "Our Batteries were on the extreme right of the British line, so we were actually touching the French left flank. I had met hundreds of poilus back in billets, in cafes, and the like. To look at them strolling down a village street in their baggy uniforms, with their hands in their pockets, laughing and chatting to the children, you would never have thought they were such tigers. I remember one big fellow a few weeks ago, home on leave—permission—who used to frisk about with a big umbrella under his arm! I suppose that was to keep the rain off his tin hat. But when they went for Maricourt the other day, there weren't many umbrellas about—only bayonets! I tell you, they were marvels!"

It would be interesting to hear the poilu on his Allies.

The first train moves off, and another takes its place. The long lines of stretchers are thinning out now. There are perhaps a hundred left. They contain men of all units—English, Scottish, and Irish. There are Gunners, Sappers, and Infantry. Here and there among them you may note bloodstained men in dirty grey uniforms—men with dull, expressionless faces and closely cropped heads. They are tended with exactly the same care as the others. Where wounded men are concerned, the British Medical Service is strictly neutral.

A wounded Corporal of the R.A.M.C. turns his head and gazes thoughtfully at one of those grey men.

"You understand English, Fritz?" he enquires.

Apparently not. Fritz continues to stare woodenly at the roof of the dock-shed.

"I should like to tell 'im a story, Jock," says the Corporal to his other neighbour. "My job is on a hospital train. 'Alf-a-dozen 'Un aeroplanes made a raid behind our lines; and seeing a beautiful Red Cross train—it was a new London and North Western train, chocolate and white, with red crosses as plain as could be—well, they simply couldn't resist such a target as that! One of their machines swooped low down and dropped his bombs on us. Luckily he only got the rear coach; but I happened to be in it! D' yer 'ear that, Fritz?"

"I doot he canna unnerstand onything," remarked the Highlander. "He's fair demoralised, like the rest. D' ye ken what happened tae me? I was gaun' back wounded, with this—" he indicates an arm strapped close to his side—"and there was six Fritzes came crawlin' oot o' a dug-oot, and gave themselves up tae me—me, that was gaun' back wounded, withoot so much as my jack-knife! Demorralised—that's it!"

"Did you 'ear," enquired a Cockney who came next in the line, "that all wounded are going to 'ave a nice little gold stripe to wear—a stripe for every wound?"

There was much interest at this.

"That'll be fine," observed a man of Kent, who had been out since Mons, and been wounded three times. "Folks'll know now that I'm not a Derby recruit."

"Where will us wear it?" enquired a gigantic Yorkshireman, from the next stretcher.

"Wherever you was 'it, lad!" replied the Cockney humourist.

"At that rate," comes the rueful reply, "I shall 'ave to stand oop to show mine!"

III

But now R.A.M.C. orderlies are at hand, and the symposium comes to an end. The stretchers are conveyed one by one into the long open coaches of the train, and each patient is slipped sideways, with gentleness and dispatch, into his appointed cot.

One saloon is entirely filled with officers—the severe cases in the cots, the rest sitting where they can. A newspaper is passed round. There are delighted exclamations, especially from a second lieutenant whose features appear to be held together entirely by strips of plaster. Such parts of the countenance as can be discerned are smiling broadly.

"I knew we were doing well," says the bandaged one, devouring the headlines; "but I never knew we were doing as well as this. Official, too! Somme Battle—what? Sorry! I apologise!" as a groan ran round the saloon.

"Nevermind," said an unshaven officer, with a twinkling eye, and a major's tunic wrapped loosely around him. "I expect that jest will be overworked by more people than you for the next few weeks. Does anybody happen to know where this train is going to?"

"West of England, somewhere, I believe," replied a voice.

There was an indignant groan from various north countrymen.

"I suppose it is quite impossible to sort us all out at a time like this," remarked a plaintive Caledonian in an upper cot; "but I fail to see why the R.A.M.C. authorities should go through the mockery of asking every man in the train where he wants to be taken, when the train can obviously only go to one place—or perhaps two. I was asked. I said 'Edinburgh'; and the medical wallah said, 'Righto! We'll send you to Bath!'"

"I think I can explain," remarked the wounded major. "These trains usually go to two places—one half to Bath, the other, say, to Exeter. Bath is nearer to Edinburgh than Exeter, so they send you there. It is kindly meant, but—"

"I say," croaked a voice from another cot,—its owner was a young officer who must just have escaped being left behind at a Base hospital as too dangerously wounded to move,—"is that a newspaper down there? Would some one have a look, and tell me if we have got Longueval all right? Longueval? Long—I got pipped, and don't quite—"

The wounded major turned his head quickly.

"Hallo, Bobby!" he observed cheerfully. "That you? I didn't notice you before."

Bobby Little's hot eyes turned slowly on Wagstaffe, and he exclaimed feverishly:—

"Hallo, Major! Cheeroh! Did we stick to Longueval all right? I've been dreaming about it a bit, and—"

"We did," replied Wagstaffe—"thanks to 'A' Company."

Bobby Little's head fell back on the pillow, and he remarked contentedly:—

"Thanks awfully. I think I can sleep a bit now. So long! See you later!"

His eyes closed, and he sighed happily, as the long train slid out from the platform.



XIII

"TWO OLD SOLDIERS, BROKEN IN THE WARS"

The smoking-room of the Britannia Club used to be exactly like the smoking-room of every other London Club. That is to say, members lounged about in deep chairs, and talked shop, or scandal—or slumbered. At any moment you might touch a convenient bell, and a waiter would appear at your elbow, like a jinnee from a jar, and accept an order with silent deference. You could do this all day, and the jinnee never failed to hear and obey.

That was before the war. Now, those idyllic days are gone. So is the waiter. So is the efficacy of the bell. You may ring, but all that will materialise is a self-righteous little girl, in brass buttons, who will shake her head reprovingly and refer you to certain passages in the Defence of the Realm Act.

Towards the hour of six-thirty, however, something of the old spirit of Liberty asserts itself. A throng of members—chiefly elderly gentlemen in expanded uniforms—assembles in the smoking-room, occupying all the chairs, and even overflowing on to the tables and window-sills. They are not the discursive, argumentative gathering of three years ago. They sit silent, restless, glancing furtively at their wrist-watches.

The clocks of London strike half-past six. Simultaneously the door of the smoking-room is thrown open, and a buxom young woman in cap and apron bounces in. She smiles maternally upon her fainting flock, and announces:—

"The half-hour's gone. Now you can all have a drink!"

What would have happened if the waiter of old had done this thing, it is difficult to imagine. But the elderly gentlemen greet their Hebe with a chorus of welcome, and clamour for precedence like children at a school-feast. And yet trusting wives believe that in his club, at least, a man is safe!

Major Wagstaffe, D.S.O., having been absent from London upon urgent public affairs for nearly three years, was not well versed in the newest refinements of club life. He had arrived that morning from his Convalescent Home in the west country, and had already experienced a severe reverse at the hands of the small girl with brass buttons on venturing to order a sherry and bitters at 11.45 A.M. Consequently, at the statutory hour, his voice was not uplifted with the rest; and he was served last. Not least, however; for Hebe, observing his empty sleeve, poured out his soda-water with her own fair hands, and offered to light his cigarette.

This scene of dalliance was interrupted by the arrival of Captain Bobby Little. He wore the ribbon of the Military Cross and walked with a stick—a not unusual combination in these great days. Wagstaffe made room for him upon the leather sofa, and Hebe supplied his modest wants with an indulgent smile.

An autumn and a winter had passed since the attack on Longueval. From July until the December floods, the great battle had raged. The New Armies, supplied at last with abundant munitions, a seasoned Staff, and a concerted plan of action, had answered the question propounded in a previous chapter in no uncertain fashion. Through Longueval and Delville Wood, where the graves of the Highlanders and South Africans now lie thick, through Flers and Martinpuich, through Pozieres and Courcelette, they had fought their way, till they had reached the ridge, with High Wood at its summit, which the Boche, not altogether unreasonably, had regarded as impregnable. The tide had swirled over the crest, down the reverse slope, and up at last to the top of that bloodstained knoll of chalk known as the Butte de Warlencourt. There the Hun threw in his hand. With much loud talk upon the subject of victorious retirements and Hindenburg Lines, he withdrew himself to a region far east of Bapaume; with the result that now some thousand square miles of the soil of France had been restored once and for all to their rightful owners.

But Bobby and Wagstaffe had not been there. All during the autumn and winter they had lain softly in hospital, enjoying their first rest for two years. Wagstaffe had lost his left arm and gained a decoration. Bobby, in addition to his Cross, had incurred a cracked crown and a permanently shortened leg. But both were well content. They had done their bit—and something over; and they had emerged from the din of war with their lives, their health, and their reason. A man who can achieve that feat in this war can count himself fortunate.

Now, passed by a Medical Board as fit for Home Service, they had said farewell to their Convalescent Home and come to London to learn what fate Olympus held in store for them.

"Where have you been all day, Bobby?" enquired Wagstaffe, as they sat down to dinner an hour later.

"Down in Kent," replied Bobby briefly.

"Very well: I will not probe the matter. Been to the War Office?"

"Yes. I was there this morning. I am to be Adjutant of a Cadet school, at Great Snoreham. What sort of a job is that likely to be?"

"On the whole," replied Wagstaffe, "a Fairy Godmother Department job. It might have been very much worse. You are thoroughly up to the Adjutant business, Bobby, and of course the young officers under you will be immensely impressed by your game leg and bit of ribbon. A very sound appointment."

"What are they going to do with you?" asked Bobby in his turn.

"I am to command our Reserve Battalion, with acting rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Think of that, my lad! They have confirmed you in your rank as Captain, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"Good! The only trouble is that you will be stationed in the South of England and I in the North of Scotland; so we shall not see quite so much of one another as of late. However, we must get together occasionally, and split a tin of bully for old times' sake."

"Bully? By gum!" said Bobby thoughtfully. "I have almost forgotten what it tastes like. (Fried sole, please; then roast lamb.) Eight months in hospital do wash out certain remembrances."

"But not all," said Wagstaffe.

"No, not all. I—I wonder how our chaps are getting on, over there."

"The regiment?"

"Yes. It is so hard to get definite news."

"They were in the Arras show. Did better than ever; but—well, they required a big draft afterwards."

"The third time!" sighed Bobby. "Did any one write to you about it?"

"Yes. Who do you think?"

"Some one in the regiment?"

"Yes."

"I didn't know there were any of the old lot left. Who was it?"

"Mucklewame."

"Mucklewame? You mean to say the Boche hasn't got him yet? It's like missing Rheims Cathedral."

"Yes, they got him at Arras. Mucklewame is in hospital. Fortunately his chief wound is in the head, so he's doing nicely. Here is his letter."

Bobby took the pencilled screed, and read:—

_Major Wagstaffe,

Sir,—I take up my pen for to inform you that I am now in hospital in Glasgow, having become a cassuality on the 18th inst.

I was struck on the head by the nose-cap of a German shell (now in the possession of my guidwife). Unfortunately I was wearing one of they steel helmets at the time, with the result that I sustained a serious scalp-wound, also very bad concussion. I have never had a liking for they helmets anyway.

The old regiment did fine in the last attack. They were specially mentioned in Orders next day. The objective was reached under heavy fire and position consolidated before we were relieved next morning_.

"Good boys!" interpolated Bobby softly.

_Colonel Carmichael, late of the Second Battn., I think, is now in command. A very nice gentleman, but we have all been missing you and the Captain.

They tell me that I will be for home service after this. My head is doing well, but the muscules of my right leg is badly torn. I should have liked fine for to have stayed out and come home with the other boys when we are through with Berlin.

Having no more to say, sir, I will now draw to a close.

Jas. Mucklewame,

C.S.M_.

After the perusal of this characteristic Ave atque Vale! the two friends adjourned to the balcony, overlooking the Green Park. Here they lit their cigars in reminiscent silence, while neighbouring search-lights raked the horizon for Zeppelins which no longer came. It was a moment for confidences.

"Old Mucklewame is like the rest of us," said Wagstaffe at last.

"How?"

"Wanting to go back, and all that. I do too—just because I'm here, I suppose. A year ago, out there, my chief ambition was to get home, with a comfortable wound and a comfortable conscience."

"Same here," admitted Bobby.

"It was the same with practically every one," said Wagstaffe. "If any man asserts that he really enjoys modern warfare, after, say, six months of it, he is a liar. In the South African show I can honestly say I was perfectly happy. We were fighting in open country, against an adversary who was a gentleman; and although there was plenty of risk, the chances were that one came through all right. At any rate, there was no poison gas, and one did not see a whole platoon blown to pieces, or buried alive, by a single shell. If Brother Boer took you prisoner, he did not stick you in the stomach with a saw-edged bayonet. At the worst he pinched your trousers. But Brother Boche is a different proposition. Since he butted in, war has descended in the social scale. And modern scientific developments have turned a sporting chance of being scuppered into a mathematical certainty. And yet—and yet—old Mucklewame is right. One hates to be out of it—especially at the finish. When the regiment comes stumping through London on its way back to Euston—next year, or whenever it's going to be—with their ragged pipers leading the way, you would like to be at the head of 'A' Company, Bobby, and I would give something to be exercising my old function of whipper-in. Eh, boy?"

"Never mind," said practical Bobby. "Perhaps we shall be on somebody's glittering Staff. What I hate to feel at present is that the other fellows, out there, have got to go on sticking it, while we—"

"And by God," exclaimed Wagstaffe, "what stickers they are—and were! Did you ever see anything so splendid, Bobby, as those six-months-old soldiers of ours—in the early days, I mean, when we held our trenches, week by week, under continuous bombardment, and our gunners behind could only help us with four or five rounds a day?"

"I never did," said Bobby, truthfully.

"I admit to you," continued Wagstaffe, "that when I found myself pitchforked into 'K(1)' at the outbreak of the war, instead of getting back to my old line battalion, I was a pretty sick man. I hated everybody. I was one of the old school—or liked to think I was—and the ways of the new school were not my ways. I hated the new officers. Some of them bullied the men; some of them allowed themselves to be bullied by N.C.O.'s. Some never gave or returned salutes, others went about saluting everybody. Some came into Mess in fancy dress of their own design, and elbowed senior officers off the hearthrug. I used to marvel at the Colonel's patience with them. But many of them are dead now, Bobby, and they nearly all made good. Then the men! After ten years in the regular Army I hated them all—the way they lounged, the way they dressed, the way they sat, the way they spat. I wondered how I could ever go on living with them. And now—I find myself wondering how I am ever going to live without them. We shall not see their like again. The new lot—present lot—are splendid fellows. They are probably better soldiers. Certainly they are more uniformly trained. But there was a piquancy about our old scamps in 'K(1)' that was unique—priceless—something the world will never see again."

"I don't know," said Bobby thoughtfully. "That Cockney regiment which lay beside us at Albert last summer was a pretty priceless lot. Do you remember a pair of fat fellows in their leading platoon? We called them Fortnum and Mason!"

"I do—particularly Fortnum. Go on!"

"Well, their bit of trench was being shelled one day, and Fortnum, who was in number one bay with five other men, kept shouting out to Mason, who was round a traverse and out of sight, to enquire how he was getting on. 'Are you all right, Bill?' 'Are you sure you're all right, Bill?' 'Are you still all right, Bill?' and so on. At last Bill, getting fed up with this unusual solicitude, yelled back: 'What's all the anxiety abaht, eh?' And Fortnum put his head round the traverse and explained. 'We're getting up a little sweepstake in our bay,' he said, 'abaht the first casuality, and I've drawn you, ole son!'"

Wagstaffe chuckled.

"That must have been the regiment that had the historic poker party," he said.

"What yarn was that?"

"I heard it from the Brigadier—four times, to be exact. Five men off duty were sitting in a dug-out playing poker. A gentleman named 'Erb had just gone to the limit on his hand, when a rifle-grenade came into the dug-out from somewhere and did him in. While they were waiting for the stretcher-bearers, one of the other players picked up 'Erb's hand and examined it. Then he laid it down again, and said: 'It doesn't matter, chaps. Poor 'Erb wouldn't a made it, anyway. I 'ad four queens.'"

"Tommy has his own ideas of fun, I'll admit," said Bobby. "Do you remember those first trenches of ours at Festubert? There was a dead Frenchman buried in the parapet—you know how they used to bury people in those days?"

"I did notice it. Go on."

"Well, this poor chap's hand stuck out, just about four feet from the floor of the trench. My dug-out was only a few yards away, and I never saw a member of my platoon go past that spot without shaking the hand and saying, Good-morning, Alphonse!' I had it built up with sandbags ultimately, and they were quite annoyed!"

"They have some grisly notions about life and death," agreed Wagstaffe, "but they are extraordinarily kind to people in trouble, such as wounded men, or prisoners. You can't better them."

"And now there are five millions of them. We are all in it, at last!"

"We certainly are—men and women. I'm afraid I had hardly realised what our women were doing for us. Being on service all the time, one rather overlooks what is going on at home. But stopping a bullet puts one in the way of a good deal of inside information on that score."

"You mean hospital work, and so on?"

"Yes. One meets a lot of wonderful people that way! Sisters, and ward-maids, and V.A.D.'s—"

"I love all V.A.D.'s!" said Bobby, unexpectedly.

"Why, my youthful Mormon?"

"Because they are the people who do all the hard work and get no limelight—like—like—!"

"Like Second Lieutenants—eh?"

"Yes, that is the idea. They have a pretty hard time, you know," continued Bobby confidentially: "And nothing heroic, either. Giving up all the fun that a girl is entitled to; washing dishes; answering the door-bell; running up and downstairs; eating rotten food. That's the sort of—"

"What is her name?" enquired the accusing voice of Major Wagstaffe. Then, without waiting to extort an answer from the embarrassed Bobby:—

"You are quite right. This war has certainly brought out the best in our women. The South African War brought out the worst. My goodness, you should have seen the Mount Nelson Hotel at Capetown in those days! But they have been wonderful this time—wonderful. I love them all—the bus-conductors, the ticket-punchers, the lift-girls—one of them nearly shot me right through the roof of Harrod's the other day—and the window-cleaners and the page-girls and the railway-portresses! I divide my elderly heart among them. And I met a bunch of munition girls the other day, Bobby, coming home from work. They were all young, and most of them were pretty. Their faces and hands were stained a bright orange-colour with picric acid, and will be, I suppose, until the Boche is booted back into his stye. In other words, they had deliberately sacrificed their good looks for the duration of the war. That takes a bit of doing, I know, innocent bachelor though I am. But bless you, they weren't worrying. They waved their orange-coloured hands to me, and pointed to their orange-coloured faces, and laughed. They were proud of them; they were doing their bit. They nearly made me cry, Bobby. Yes, we are all in it now; and those of us who come out of it are going to find this old island of ours a wonderfully changed place to live in."

"How? Why?" enquired Bobby. Possibly he was interested in Wagstaffe's unusual expansiveness: possibly he hoped to steer the conversation away from the topic of V.A.D.'s—possibly towards it. You never know.

"Well," said Wagstaffe, "we are all going to understand one another a great deal better after this war."

"Who? Labour and Capital, and so on?"

"'Labour and Capital' is a meaningless and misleading expression, Bobby. For instance, our men regard people like you and me as Capitalists; the ordinary Brigade Major regards us as Labourers, and pretty common Labourers at that. It is all a question of degree. But what I mean is this. You can't call your employer a tyrant and an extortioner after he has shared his rations with you and never spared himself over your welfare and comfort through weary months of trench-warfare; neither, when you have experienced a working-man's courage and cheerfulness and reliability in the day of battle, can you turn round and call him a loafer and an agitator in time of peace—can you? That is just what the Bandar-log overlook, when they jabber about the dreadful industrial upheaval that is coming with peace. Most of all have they overlooked the fact that with the coming of peace this country will be invaded by several million of the wisest men that she has ever produced—the New British Army. That Army will consist of men who have spent three years in getting rid of mutual misapprehensions and assimilating one another's point of view—men who went out to the war ignorant and intolerant and insular, and are coming back wise to all the things that really matter. They will flood this old country, and they will make short work of the agitator, and the alarmist, and the profiteer, and all the nasty creatures that merely make a noise instead of doing something, and who crab the work of the Army and Navy—more especially the Navy—because there isn't a circus victory of some kind in the paper every morning. Yes, Bobby, when our boys get back, and begin to ask the Bandar-log what they did in the Great War—well, it's going to be a rotten season for Bandar-log generally!"

There was silence again. Presently Bobby spoke:—

"When our boys get back! Some of them are never coming back again, worse luck!"

"Still," said Wagstaffe, "what they did was worth doing, and what they died for was worth while. I think their one regret to-day would be that they did not live to see their own fellows taking the offensive—the line going forward on the Somme; the old tanks waddling over the Boche trenches; and the Boche prisoners throwing up their hands and yowling 'Kamerad'! And the Kut unpleasantness cleaned up, and all the kinks in the old Salient straightened out! And Wytchaete and Messines! You remember how the two ridges used to look down into our lines at Wipers and Plugstreet? And now we're on top of both of them! Some of our friends out there—the friends who are not coming back—would have liked to know about that, Bobby. I wish they could, somehow."

"Perhaps they do," said Bobby simply.

It was close on midnight. Our "two old soldiers, broken in the wars," levered themselves stiffly to their feet, and prepared to depart.

"Heigho!" said Wagstaffe. "It is time for two old wrecks like us to be in bed. That's what we are, Bobby—wrecks, dodderers, has-beens! But we have had the luck to last longer than most. We have dodged the missiles of the Boche to an extent which justifies us in claiming that we have followed the progress of their war with a rather more than average degree of continuity. We were the last of the old crowd, too. Kemp has got his Brigade, young Cockerell has gone to be a Staff Captain, and—you and I are here. Some of the others dropped out far too soon. Young Lochgair, old Blaikie—"

"Waddell, too," said Bobby. "We joined the same day."

"And Angus M'Lachlan. I think he would have made the finest soldier of the lot of us," added Wagstaffe. "You remember his remark to me, that we only had the bye to play now? He was a true prophet: we are dormy, anyhow. (Only cold feet at Home can let us down now.) And he only saw three months' service! Still, he made a great exit from this world, Bobby, and that is the only thing that matters in these days. Ha! H'm! As our new Allies would say, I am beginning to 'pull heart stuff' on you. Let us go to bed. Sleeping here?"

"Yes, till to-morrow. Then off on leave."

"How much have you got?"

"A month. I say?"

"Yes?"

"Are you doing anything on the nineteenth?"

Wagstaffe regarded his young friend suspiciously.

"Is this a catch of some kind?" he enquired.

"Oh, no. Will you be my—" Bobby turned excessively pink, and completed his request.

Wagstaffe surveyed him resignedly.

"We all come to it, I suppose," he observed.

"Only some come to it sooner than others. Are you of age, my lad? Have your parents—"

"I'm twenty-two," said Bobby shortly.

"Will the bridesmaids be pretty?"

"They are all peaches," replied Bobby, with enthusiasm. "But nothing whatever," he added, in a voice of respectful rapture, "compared with the bride!"

THE END