Front matter (continued 3)

My batman could give no information and they fell into a discussion as to what could have happened to Charlie: whether he might have missed the train or fallen off the boat. My batman favoured the latter theory, he had felt very like it himself, he said. One thing led to another and presently the sandy man said:

"Well, what about it?" lifting his elbow suggestively, and winking.

My batman said he didn't mind if he did, so they adjourned to a little place near by that the sandy man knew of, and had one or two, the sandy man behaving like a perfect gentleman throughout, standing drink for drink, cigar for cigar.

At 7 a.m. or thereabouts, the sandy man excused himself on the plea of business (which he explained was very healthy owing to the inclemency of the weather) and betook himself off, my batman returning to Victoria to retrieve his pack.

By this time his order was not so good as it had been, owing, he thinks, to (a) the excitement of being home again, hearing civilians all talking English and seeing so many intact houses at once; (b) the bereaved state of his stomach. Whatever it was he navigated to the station with difficulty and "comin' over all dizzy like," reclined on a platform bench and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again it was to see the white cliffs of Albion rapidly disappearing over the stern rail of a trooper. He closed his eyes again and told himself he was dreaming, but not for long—he might deceive his reason but not his stomach.

He soon saw that he was in mid-Channel going back to France. He sat up on deck and shouted for someone to stop the ship.

"'E's come to, Bill," said a familiar voice at his side, and turning, he beheld the cheerful countenances of Frederick Wilkes and William Buck, two stalwarts of "ours" who were returning from leave.

My batman asked Frederick Wilkes what he thought he was doing of.

"Saving you from six months in clink for over-staying your leaf, ol' dear!" Frederick replied cheerfully. "Me and Bill found you on the station, blind to the world, so we loaded you on the train and bringed you along. Pretty job we had of it, too, getting you past the red-caps, you slopping about like a lu-natic."

"Clink! Overstayin' my leaf!" shrilled my batman. "Gor-blimy! I ain't 'ad no leaf—I only just landed!"

"Delerious again, Bill," said Frederick, and Bill nodded. "Of course you've had your leaf, an' a wonderful good leaf, too, by the looks of you—blind to the world from start to finish, not knowin' dark from daylight."

"I'll tell the first R.T.O. I see all about it when I land—you perishin' kidnappers!" foamed my batman.

"Ho no, you won't!" said Frederick, complacently. "We aren't going to 'ave you runnin' about in your light-'eaded condition disgracin' the regiment—are we, Bill?"

"Not likely," William Buck replied. "We're going to take you back with us, safe and sound if we 'ave to break your neck to do it, an' don't you forget it, ol' man!"

I think it is extremely improbable that my batman ever will.

XXVII HOT AIR

The scene is a base camp behind the Western Front. In the background is a gravel pit, its brow fringed with pines. On the right-hand side is a black hut; against one wall several cast-iron cylinders are leaning; against another several stretchers; behind it a squad of R.A.M.C. orderlies are playing pitch and toss for profit and pleasure. On the left-hand side is a cemetery.

On the turf in the centre of the stage are some two hundred members of the well-known British family, Atkins. The matter in hand being merely that of life and death those in the rear ranks are whiling away the time by playing crown and anchor. Their less fortunate comrades in the prominence of the front ranks are "havin' a bit o' shut eye"—in other words are fast asleep sitting up, propped the one against the other.

Before them stands a Bachelor of Science disguised as a Second Lieutenant. From the green and black brassard about his arm and the attar de chlorine and parfum de phosgene which cling about him in a murky aureole one would guess him to be connected with the Gas Service. And one would be quite correct; he is.

* * * * * * * *

Lecturer: "Ahem! Pay attention to me, please; I am going to give you a little chat on Gas. When you go up the line one of two things must inevitably happen to you; you will either be gassed or you will not. If you are not gassed strict attention to this lecture will enable you to talk as if you had been. On the other hand, if you are gassed it will enable you to distinguish to which variety you succumbed, which will be most instructive.

"There are more sorts of gas than one. There is the Home or Domestic Gas, which does odd jobs about the house at a bob a time, and which out here is fed to observation balloons to get them off the earth. There is Laughing Gas, so called from the fun the dentist gets out of his victims while they are under its influence; and lastly there is Hun Gas, which is not so amusing.

"Three varieties of gas are principally employed by the Hun. The first of these is Chlorine. Chlorine smells like a strong sanitary orderly or weak chloride of lime. The second on our list is Mustard Gas, so called because it smells like garlic. Everything that smells of garlic is not Mustard Gas, however, as a certain British Division which went into the line alongside some of our brave Southern allies regretfully discovered after they had been sweltering in their masks for thirty-six long, long hours.

"The third and last is Phosgene. Phosgene has a greenish whitish yellowish odour all its own, reminiscent of decayed vegetation, mouldy hay, old clothes, wet hides, burnt feathers, warm mice, polecats, dead mules, boiled cabbage, stewed prunes, sour grapes, or anything else you dislike.

"As all these gases have a depressing effect on the consumer if indulged in too freely the War Office has devised an effective counter-irritant, the scientific wonder of the age, the soldier's friend and multum in parvo—in short, the Respirator-Box. Here you will observe I have a respirator-box as issued to the troops.

"There are other kinds with lace trimmings and seasonable mottoes worked in coloured beads for the use of the Staff; but they do not concern us. Let us now examine the ordinary respirator-box. What do we discover? A neat canvas satchel, knapsack or what-not, which will be found invaluable for the storage of personal knick-knacks, such as soap, knives and forks, socks, iron rations, mouth-organs, field-marshal's batons, etc. Within the satchel (what-not or knapsack) we discover a rubber sponge-bag pierced with motor goggles, a clothes-peg, a foot of garden hose, a baby's teether (chewers among you will find this a comforting substitute for gum), a yard or two of strong twine (first-aid to the braces), a tube of Anti-Dimmer (use it as tooth-paste, your smile will beam more brightly), and a record card, on which you are invited to inscribe your name, age, vote and clubs; your golf, polo and ludo handicaps; complaints as to the cooking or service and any sunny sentiments or epigrams that may occur to you from time to time.

"Should you be in the line and detect the presence of hostile gas in large numbers your first action should be to don your respirator-box and your second to give the alarm. The donning of the respirator is done in five motions by the best people:—

"1. Remove the cigarette, chewing-gum or false teeth from the mouth and place it (or them) behind the ear (or ears).

"2. Tear the sponge-bag out of the knapsack (what-not or satchel) and slap it boldly on the face as you would a mustard-plaster.

"3. Pin it to your nose by means of the clothes-peg.

"4. Work the elastics well into the back hair.

"5. Swallow the teether and carry on with deep breathing exercises, as done by Swedes, sea-lions and such-like.

"The respirator once in position, pass the good news on to your comrades by performing fortissimo on one of the numerous alarums with which every nice front line is liberally provided. But please remember that gas alarms are for gas only, and do not let your natural exuberance or love of music carry you away, as it is liable to create a false impression; witness the case of some of our high-spirited Colonials, who, celebrating a national festival (the opening of the whippet racing-season in New South Wales) with a full orchestra of Klaxon and Strombos horns, rattles, gongs, shell-cases, tin-cans, sackbuts, psalteries and other instruments of musick, sent every living soul in an entire army area stampeding into their smell-hats, there to remain for forty-eight hours without food, drink or benefit of clergy.

"Having given you full instructions as to the correct method of entering your respirators I will now tell you how to extricate yourselves. You must first be careful to ascertain that there is no gas left about. Tests are usually made (1) with a white mouse, (2) with a canary.

"If the white mouse turns green there is gas present; if it don't there ain't. If the canary wags his tail and whistles 'Gee! ain't it dandy down in Dixie!' all is well, but if it wheezes 'The End of a Perfect Day' and moults violently, beware, beware! If through the negligence of the Quartermastering Department you have not been equipped with either mice or canaries do not start sniffing for gas yourselves, but remember that your lives are of value to your King and country and send for an officer. To have first sniff of all gas is one of an officer's privileges; he hasn't many, but this is one of them and very jealously guarded as such. If an officer should catch you snuffing up all the gas in the neighbourhood he will be justifiably annoyed and peevish.

"Now; having given you all the theory of anti-gas precautions, we will indulge in a little practice. When I shout the word 'Gas!' my assistants will distribute a few smoke bombs among you, and every man will don his respirator in five motions and wend his way towards the gas-chamber, entering it by the south door and leaving it by the north. Is that quite clear? Then get ready. Gas!"

* * * * * * * *

Four or five N.C.O. Instructors suddenly pop up out of the gravel pit and bombard the congregation with hissing smoke grenades. The front ranks wake up, spring to their feet in terror and leg it for safety at a stretched gallop, shedding their respirators for lightness' sake as they flee. The rear ranks, who, in spite of themselves, have heard something of the lecture, burrow laboriously into their masks. Some wear them as hats, some as ear-muffs, some as chest-protectors.

The smoke rolls over them in heavy yellow billows.

Shadow shapes, hooded like Spanish inquisitors, may be seen here and there crouched as in prayer, struggling together or groping blindly for the way out. One unfortunate has his head down a rabbit-hole, several blunder over the edge of the gravel pit and are seen no more.

There is a noise of painful laboured breathing as of grampuses in deep water or pigs with asthma.

The starchy N.C.O. Instructors close on the helpless mob and with muffled yelps and wild waving of arms herd them towards the south door of the gas-chamber, push them inside and shoot the bolts.

The R.A.M.C. Orderlies are busy hauling the bodies out of the north door, loading them on stretchers and trotting them across to the cemetery, at the gates of which stands the Base Burial Officer beaming welcome.

The lecturer, seeing the game well in progress, lights a pipe and strolls home to tea.

XXVIII THE CONVERT

I found No. 764, Trooper Hartley, W.J., in the horse lines, sitting on a hay-bale perusing a letter which seemed to give him some amusement. On seeing me he arose, clicked his spurs and saluted. I returned the salute, graciously bidding him carry on. We go through the motions of officer and man very punctiliously, William and I. In other days, in other lands, our relative positions were easier.

The ceremonies over I sat down beside him on the hay-bale, and we became Bill and Jim to each other.

"Did you ever run across Gustav Müller in the old days?" William inquired, thumbing a fistful of dark Magliesburg tobacco into his corn-cob incinerator. "'Mafoota,' the niggers called him, a beefy man with an underdone complexion."

"Yes," I said, "he turned up in my district on the Wallaby in 1913 or thereabouts, with nothing in the world but a topee, an army overcoat and a box of parlour magic. Set up as a wizard in Chala's kraal. Used to produce yards of ribbon out of the mouths of the afflicted, and collapsible flower-pots out of their nostrils—casting out devils, you understand. Was scratching together a very comfortable practice; but he began to dabble in black politics, so I moved him on. An entertaining old rogue; I don't know what became of him."

William winked at me through a cloud of blue tobacco smoke. "I do. He went chasing a rainbow's end North of the Lakes, and I went along with him. You see, Gustav's great-aunt Gretchen appeared to him in a dream and told him there was alluvial gold in a certain river bed, tons of it, easy washing, so we went after it. We didn't find it; but that's neither here nor there; a man must take a chance now and again, and this was the first time Gustav's great-aunt had let him down. She'd given him the straight tip for two Melbourne Cups and a Portugoose lottery in her time. Some girl, great-aunt Gretchen! Anyway there was Gustav and me away up at the tail-end of Nowhere, with the boys yapping for six months' back pay, and we couldn't have bought a feed of hay for a nightmare between us. We just naturally had to do something, so——"

"So you just naturally took to poaching ivory," said I. "I know you. Go on."

William grinned. "Well, a man must live, you know. How'msodever we struck a bonanza vein of m'jufu right away and piled up the long white nuggets in a way that would drive you to poetry. A Somali Arab took the stuff from us on the spot, paying us in cattle at a fifty-per-cent discount, which was reasonable enough, seeing that he ran ninety per cent of the risks. Everything sailed along like a beautiful dream. The elephants was that tame they'd eat out of your hand, and you could stroll out and bowl over a dozen of the silly blighters before breakfast if you felt in the mood. The police hadn't got our address as yet. The only competitor that threatened got buckshot in his breeches, which changed his mind and direction for him very precipitous. The industry boomed and boomed.

"'Another year of this,' says I to myself, 'and I'll retire home and grow roses, drive a pony-trap and be a churchwarden.'

"Then one day the Arab headman blows into camp, and squatting outside our tent, commences to lamentate and pipe his eye in a way that would make you think he'd ate a skinful of prickly pears.

"'What's biting you, Bluebell?' I asked.

"'Allah akbar! God is good but business is rotten,' says he, and pitches a woeful yarn how that columns of Askaris was marching thither and thence, poking their flat noses in where they wasn't invited; Inglische gunboats were riding every wave, scaring seven bells out of the coast dhows, and consequently commerce was sent to blazes and a poor man couldn't get an honest living no-how. The long and short of it was that ivory smuggling was off for the period of the War.

"'What war, you scum?' says Gustav, pricking his freckled ears. 'Who's warring?'

"'The Inglische and Germans, of course,' says the Arab. 'Didn't the B'wana know?'

"'No, the B'wana doesn't,' says I; 'our private Marconi outfit is broke down owing to the monkeys swinging on the wires. Now trot home, you barbarous ape, while me and my colleague throws a ray of pure intellect on the problem. Bassi.'

"So he soon dismisses at the double and is seen no more in them vicinities.

"'Well, partner,' says I to Gustav, 'this is a fair knock-out—what?'

"But Gustav, he grumbles something I couldn't catch and walks off into the bush with his head down, afflicted with thought.

"He didn't come in for supper, so I scoffed his share and turned in.

"At moonrise I thought I heard a bull elephant trumpeting like he was love-sick, but it wasn't. It was Gustav coming home singing the Wacht am Rhein. He brings up opposite my bed.

"'Oh, give over and let the poor lions and leopards snatch some sleep,' says I.

"'I was born in Shermany,' says he.

"'Don't let that keep you awake, ole man,' says I. 'What saith the prophet? "If a cat kittens on a fish-plate they ain't necessarily herrings."'

"'I'm a Sherman,' says he.

"'You've been so long with white men that nobody'd know it,' says I. 'Forget it, and I won't tell on you. Why, you ain't seen Shermany these thirty years, and you wouldn't know a squarehead if you was to trip over one. Go to bed, Mr. Caruso.'

"'Well, I'm going to be a mighty good Sherman now, to make up for lost time,' says he grim-like, 'and in case you got any objections I'll point out that you've the double express proximitous to your stomach.'

"He had me bailed up all right. Arguments weren't no use with the cuss. 'I'm a Sherman' was all he'd say; and next day we starts to hoof it to Germany territory, me promenading in front calling Gustav every name but his proper one, and him marching behind, prodding me in the back with the blunderbuss. He disenjoyed that trip even more than I did; he had to step behind me all day for fear I'd dodge him into the bush; and he sat up all night for fear the boys would rescue me. He got as red-eyed as a bear and his figure dropped off him in bucketfuls.

"At the end of a month we crossed the border and hit the trail of the Deutscher—burnt villages everywhere, with the mutilated bodies of women and picaninnies lying about, stakes driven through 'em, Waugh!

"'Are you still a Sherman?' I asks; but Gustav says nothing; he'd gone a bit white about the gills all the same. Then one morning we tumbles into one of their columns and the game is up. I was given a few swipes with a kiboko for welcome and hauled before the Commander, a little short cove with yellow hair, a hand-carved jaw and spectacles. He diagnosed my case as serious, prescribed me some more kiboko, and I was hove into a grass hut under guard, pending the obsequies.

"The Officers called Gustav a good sport, gave him a six-by-four cigar and took him off to dinner. I noticed he looked back at me once or twice. So I sits down in the hut and meditates on some persons' sense of humour, with a big Askari buck padding it up and down outside, whiling away the sunny hours with a bit of disembowelling practice on his bayonet.

"A couple of days flits by while the column is away spreading the good word with fire and stake. Then on the third night I hears a scuffle outside the hut, and the Askari comes somersaulting backwards through the grass wall like as if an earthquake had butted him in the brisket. He gave a couple of kicks and stretched out like as if he was tired.

"'Whist! Is that you, Bill?' comes a whisper through the hole.

"'What's left of me,' says I. 'Who are you?'

"'Me—Gustav,' says the whisperer.

"'What's the antic this time? Capturing me again?' says I.

"'No, I'm rescuing you now,' says he.

"'The devil you are,' says I, and with that I glided out through the hole and followed him on my stomach. A sentry gave tongue at the scrub-edge, but Gustav rose up out of the grass and bumped him behind the ear and we went on.

"'Well, you're a lovely quick-change artist, capturing a bloke one moment and rescuing him the next,' says I presently. 'What's come over you? Ain't you a Sherman no more?'

"Gustav groans as if his heart was broke. 'I've been away thirty years. I didn't know they was like that; I'd forgotten. Oh, my Gawd, what swine!' He spits like a man that has bit sour beer, and we ran on again."

"Didn't they chase you?" I asked.

William nodded.

"But they couldn't catch two old bush-bucks like us, and the next day we fell in with a British column that was out hunting them. 'Twas a merry meeting. Gustav enlisted with the Britishers on the spot."

William tapped the travel-soiled letter in his hand. "This is from him. He's down in Nairobi, wounded. He says he's sitting up taking nourishment, and that great-aunt Gretchen has appeared to him again and showed him a diamond pipe in the Khali Hari, which will require a bit of looking into après la guerre—if there ever is any après."

XIX A REST CURE

Not long ago a notice appeared in Part II Orders to the effect that our Army had established a Rest Home at X where invalid officers might be sent for a week's recuperation.

Now X is a very pleasant place, consisting of a crowd of doll's-house châlets set between cool pine-woods and the sea.

The châlets are labelled variously "Villa des Roses," "Les Hirondelles," "Sans Souci," and so on, and in the summertimes of happier years swarmed with comfortable bourgeois, bare-legged children and Breton nannas; but in these stern days a board above the gate of "Villa des Roses" announces that the Assistant-Director of Agriculture may be found within meditating on the mustard-and-cress crop, while "Les Hirondelles" and "Sans Souci" harbour respectively the Base Press Censor (whose tar-brush hovered over this perfectly priceless article) and a platoon of the D.L.O.L.R.R.V.R. (Duchess of Loamshire's Own Ladies' Rabbit Rearing Volunteer Reserve).

X, as I said before, is an exceedingly pleasant place; you may lean out of the window o' mornings and watch the D.L.O.L.R.R.V.R.'s Sergeant-Majoress putting her platoon through Swedish monkey motions, and in the afternoons you can recline on the sands and watch them sporting in the glad sea-waves (telescopes protruding from the upper windows of "Villa des Roses" and "Sans Souci" suggesting that the A.D.A. and the B.P.C. are similarly employed).

The between-whiles may be spent lapping up ozone from the sea, resin from the pine-woods, and champagne cocktails which Marie-Louise mixes so cunningly in the little café round the corner; and what with one thing and another the invalid officer goes pig-jumping back to the line fit to mince whole brigades of Huns with his bare teeth.

X, you will understand, is a very admirable institution, and when we heard about this Rest Home we were all for it and tried to cultivate fur on the tongue, capped hocks and cerebral meningitis; but the Skipper hardened his heart against us and there was nothing doing.

Then one morning MacTavish came over all dithery-like in the lines, fell up against a post, smashed his wrist-watch and would have brained himself had that been possible.

He picked himself up, apologised for making a fool of himself before the horses, patched his scalp with plaster from his respirator, borrowed my reserve watch "Pretty Polly," and carried on.

"Pretty Polly" can do two laps to any other watch's one without turning a hair-spring. Externally she looks very much like any other mechanical pup the Ordnance sells you for eleven francs net; her secret lies in her spring, which, I imagine, must have been intended for "Big Ben," but sprang into the wrong chassis by mistake.

At all events as soon as it is wound up it lashes out left and right with such violence that the whole machine leaps with the shock of its internal strife and hops about on the table after the manner of a Mexican dancing bean, clucking like an ostrich that has laid twins.

It will be gathered that my "Pretty Polly" is not the ultimate syllable in the way of accuracy, but as MacTavish seemed to want her and had been kind to me in the way of polo-sticks, I handed her over without a murmur.

The same afternoon MacTavish came over dithery again, dived into a heap of bricks and knocked himself out for the full count.

We put him to bed and signalled the Vet. The Vet reported that MacTavish's temperature was well above par and booming. He went on to state that MacTavish was suffering from P.U.O. (which is Spanish for "flu") and that he probably wouldn't weather the night.

The Skipper promptly 'phoned O.C. Burials, inviting him to dine next evening, and Albert Edward wired his tailor, asking what was being worn in headstones.

William, our Mess President, took up a position by the sick man's side in hopes he would regain consciousness for long enough to settle his mess-bill, and the rest of us spent the evening recalling memories of poor old Mac, his many sterling qualities, etc.

However, next morning a batman poked his head into the Mess and said could Mr. MacTavish have a little whisky, please, he was fancying it, and anyway you couldn't force none of that there grool down him not if you was to use a drenching bit.

At noon the batman was back to say that Mr. MacTavish was fancying a cigarette now, also a loan of the gramophone and a few cheerful records.

The Skipper promptly 'phoned postponing O.C. Burials, and Albert Edward wired his tailor, changing his order to that of a canary waistcoat.

That evening MacTavish tottered into the Mess and managed to surround a little soup, a brace of cutlets and a bottle of white wine without coming over dithery again.

But for all that he was not looking his best; he weaved in his walk, his eye was dull, his nose hot, his ear cold and drooping, and the Skipper, gazing upon him, remembered the passage in Part II Orders and straightway sat down and applied that MacTavish be sent to X at once, adding such a graphic pen-picture of the invalid (most of it copied from a testimonial to somebody's backache pills) as to reduce us to tears and send MacTavish back to his bed badly shaken to hear how ill he'd been.

The Skipper despatched his pen-picture to H.Q. and forgot all about it, and so did H.Q. apparently, for we heard nothing further, and in due course forgot all about it ourselves, and in the meanwhile MacTavish got back into form, and MacTavish in form is no shrinking lily be it said.

He has a figure which tests every stitch in his Sam Browne, a bright blue eye and a complexion which an external application of mixed weather and an internal application of tawny port has painted the hue of the beetroot.

Then suddenly, like a bomb from the blue, an ambulance panted up to the door and presented a H.Q. chit to the effect that the body of MacTavish be delivered to it at once to bear off to X.

The Skipper at the time was out hacking and Albert Edward was in charge; he sent an orderly flying to MacTavish, who rolled in from his tent singing "My Friend John" at the top of his voice and looking more like an over-fed beetroot than ever.

"Dash it all, I don't want to go to their confounded mortuary," he shouted; "never felt fitter in my life. I can't go; I won't go!"

"You'll have to," said Albert Edward; "can't let the Skipper down after that pen-picture he wrote; the Staff would never believe another word he said. No, MacTavish, my son, you'll have to play the game and go."

"But, you ass, look at him," wailed the Babe; "look at his ruddy, ruby, tomato-ketchup, plum-and-apple complexion. What are you going to do about that?"

"I'll settle his complexion," replied Albert Edward grimly; "tell his man to toss his tooth-brush into the meat-waggon; and you, Mac, come with me."

He led the violently protesting MacTavish into the kitchen. The cook tells me Albert Edward pounded two handfuls of flour into MacTavish's complexion and filled his eye-sockets up with coal-dust, and I quite believe the cook, for in five minutes' time I came on Albert Edward dragging what I at first took to be the body of a dead Pierrot down the passage towards the waiting ambulance, at the same time exhorting it to play the game and wobble for the Skipper's sake.

The wretched MacTavish, choking with flour and blinded with coal-dust, wobbled like a Clydesdale with the staggers.

I saw a scared R.A.M.C. orderly bound out of the car and assist Albert Edward to hoist MacTavish aboard, trip him up and pin him down on a stretcher. Then the ambulance coughed swiftly out of sight.

The allotted week passed but no MacTavish came bounding back to us like a giant refreshed with great draughts of resin, and we grew anxious; which anxiety did not abate when, in reply to the Skipper's inquiries, the Rest Home authorities wired denying all knowledge of him.

Goodness knows what we should have done if a letter from MacTavish himself had not arrived next morning, to say that he had lain on his back in the ambulance digging coal-dust out of his eyes and coughing up flour till the car stopped, not, to his surprise, at the Rest Home, but at a Casualty Clearing Station.

Some snuffling R.A.M.C. orderlies bore him tenderly to a tent and a doctor entered, also snuffling. MacTavish is of the opinion that the whole of the medical staff had P.U.O., and the doctor was the sickest of the lot and far from reliable.

At all events, on seeing MacTavish's face, he ejaculated a bronchial "Good Lord!" and tearing MacTavish's tunic open, stuck a trumpet against his tummy and listened for the ticks.

Apparently he heard something sensational, for he wheezed another "Good Lord!" and decorated MacTavish with a scarlet label.

Within an hour our hero found himself on board a Red Cross train en route for the coast.

There were a lot of cheerful wounded on the bus, getting all the soup and jelly they wanted; but MacTavish got only lukewarm milk and precious little of that. From scraps of hushed conversation he caught here and there he gathered that his life hung by a thread.

He was feeling very bewildered and depressed, he said, but, remembering his duty to the Skipper, played the game and kept body and soul together on drips of jelly surreptitiously begged from the cheerful wounded.

Next morning he found himself in hospital in England, where he still remains. He says he has been promoted from warm milk to cold slops, but is still liable to die at any moment, he understands.

He has discovered that he was sent home with "galloping heart disease," but nobody in the hospital can get even a trot out of it, and boards of learned physicians sit on him all day long, their trumpets planted on his tummy listening for the ticks.

MacTavish says he thinks it improbable that they ever will hear any ticks now, for the excellent reason that he threw the cause thereof—my "Pretty Polly," to wit—out of the window the day he arrived.

In a postscript he adds that he considers he has played the game far enough, and that if the Skipper doesn't come and bail him out soon he'll bite the learned physicians, kiss the nurses, sing "My Friend John" and disgrace the Regiment for ever.

XXX THE HARRIERS (I)

The Boche having lately done a retreat—"strategic retirement," "tactical adjustment," "elastic evasion," or whatever Ludendorff is calling it this week—in plain words the Boche, having gloriously trotted backwards off a certain slice of France, Albert Edward and I found ourselves attached to a Corps H.Q. operating in a wilderness of grass-grown fields, ruined villages and smoking châteaux.

One evening Albert Edward loitered up to the hen-house I was occupying at the time and chatted to me through the wires as I shaved.

"Put up seventeen hares and ten covey of partridges visiting outposts to-day—take my advice and scrap that moustache while you're about it, it must be a heavy drain on your system—and twenty hares and four covey riding home. Do you find lathering the ears improves their growth, or what?"

"The country is crawling with game," said I, ignoring his personalities, "and here we are hanging body and soul together on bully and dog biscuit."

"Exactly," said Albert Edward, "and in the meanwhile the festive lapin breeds and breeds. Has it ever occurred to you that, if something isn't done soon, we'll have Australia's sad story over again here in Picardy? Give the rabbits a chance and in no time they'll have eaten off all the crops in France. Why, on the Burra I've seen——"

"One moment," said I; "if I listen to your South Australian rabbit story again you've got to listen to my South African locust yarn; it's only fair."

"Oh, shut up," Albert Edward growled; "can't you understand this question is deadly serious?"

"Best put the Tanks on to 'em then," I suggested; "they'd enjoy themselves, and the Waterloo Cup wouldn't be in it—Captain Monkey-Wrench's brindled whippet, 'Sardine Tin,' 6 to 4; Major Spanner's 'Pig Iron,' 7 to 2; even money the field."

"Your humour is a trifle strained," said Albert Edward; "if you're not careful you'll crack a joke at the expense of a tendon one of these days."

"Look here," said I, wiping the blood off my safety-razor, "you're evidently struggling to give expression to some heavy brain wave; out with it."

"What about a pack of harriers?" said Albert Edward. "There must be swarms of sportive tykes about, faithful Fidos that have stuck to the dear old homestead through thick and thin, also refugee animals that follow the sweet-scented infantry cookers. I've got my old hunting-horn; you've got your old crop; between the two we ought to be able to mobilize 'em a bit and put the wind up these darn hares. I'm going to try anyway. I may say I look on it as a duty."

"Looked on in that light it's a sacred duty," said I; "and—er—incidentally we might reap a haunch of hare out of it now and again, mightn't we?"

"Incidentally, yes," said Albert Edward, "and a trifle of sport into the bargain—incidentally."

So we set about collecting a pack there and then by offering our servants five francs per likely dog and no questions asked.

No questions were asked, but I have a strong suspicion that our gentlemen were up all night and that there were dark deeds done in the dead of it, for the very next evening my groom and countryman presented us with a bill for forty-five francs.

The dogs, he informed us, were kennelled "in a little shmall place the like of an ice-house" at the northern extremity of the château grounds, and that "anyway a blind man himself couldn't miss them wid the screechin' an' hollerin' they are afther raisin' be dint of the confinement."

I had an appointment with the Q. Staff (to explain why I had indented for sixty-four horse rations while only possessing thirty-two horses, the excuse that they all enjoyed very healthy appetites apparently not sufficing), so Albert Edward went forth to inspect the pack alone.

He came into Mess very late, looking hot and dishevelled.

"My word, they've looted a blooming menagerie," he panted in my ear; "still, couldn't expect to pick Pytchley puppies off every bush, I suppose."

"What have they got, actually?" I inquired.

"Two couple of Belgian light-draught dogs—you know, the kind they hitch on to any load too heavy for a horse—an asthmatic beagle, an anæmic bloodhound, a domesticated wolf, an unfrocked poodle, and a sort of dropsical pug."

"What on earth is the pug for?" I asked.

"Luck," said Albert Edward. "Your henchman says 'them kind of little dogs do be bringing ye luck,' and backs it up with a very convincing yarn of an uncle of his in Bally-something who had a lucky dog—'as like this wan here as two spits, except maybe for the least little curliness of the tail'—which provided complete immunity from ghosts, witches' evil and ingrowing toe-nails. I thought it cheap at five francs."

"But, good Lord, that lot'll never hunt hares," I protested.

"Won't they?" said Albert Edward grimly. "With the only meal they'll ever see prancing along in front of them, and you and me prancing along behind scourging 'em with scorpions, I rather fancy they will. By the way, I know you won't mind, but I've had to shift your bed out under the chestnut-tree; it's really quite a good tree as trees go."

"But why can't I stop in my hen-house?" I objected.

"Because I've just moved the pack there," said he.

"But why?" I went on. "What's the matter with the ice-house?"

"That's just it," he hissed in my ear; "it isn't an ice-house—never was; it's the De Valcourt family vault."

The next day being propitious, we decided to hold our first meet that evening, and issued a few invitations. The Veterinary Bloke and the Field Cashier promised to show up, likewise the Padre, once the sacredness of our cause had been explained to him.

At noon "stables" Albert Edward reported the pack in fine fettle. "Kicking up a fearful din and look desperate enough to hunt a holy angel," said he. "At five o'clock, me lad, Hard forrard! Tally-ho! and Odds-boddikins!"

However at 4.45 p.m., just as I was mounting, he appeared in my lines wearing slacks and a very downcast expression.

"Wash-out," he growled; "they've been fed and are now lying about, blown up and dead to the world."

"But who the devil fed them?" I thundered.

"They fed themselves," said Albert Edward. "They ate the blooming lucky dog at half-past four."

We therefore postponed the hunt until the morrow; but cannibalism (so cannibals assure me), once indulged in, becomes as absorbing as morphia or jig-saws, and at two-fifteen the next afternoon my groom reported the beagle to have gone the way of the pug, and the pack once more dead to the world.

There was nothing for it but to postpone the show yet again, and tie up each hound separately as a precaution against further orgies.

However it seemed to have become a habit with them, for the moment they were unleashed on the evening of the third day they turned as one dog upon the poodle.

I wiped the bloodhound's nose for him with a deft swipe of my whip lash, and Albert Edward's charger anchored the domesticated wolf by treading firmly on its tail, all of which served to give the fugitive a few seconds' start; and then a wave of mad dog dashed between our horses' legs and was on his trail screaming for gore.

The poodle heard the scream and did not dally, but got him hence with promptitude and agility. He streaked across the orchard, leading by five lengths; but the good going across the park reduced his advantage. He dived through the fence hard pressed and, with the bloodhound's hot breath singeing his tail feathers, leaped into the back of a large farm-cart which happened, providentially for him, to be meandering down the broad highway.

In the shafts of the cart was a sleepy fat Percheron mare. On the seat was a ponderous farmeress, upholstered in respectable black and crowned with a bead bonnet. They were probably making a sentimental excursion to the ruins of their farm. I know not; but I do know that the fat mare was suddenly shocked out of a pleasant drowse to find herself the centre of a frenzied pack of wolves, bloodhounds and other dog-hooligans, and, not liking the look of things, promptly bolted.

Albert Edward and I dropped over the low hedge to see the cart disappearing down the road in a whirl of dust pursued by our vociferous harriers.

The fat farmeress, her bonnet wobbling over one ear, was tugging manfully at the reins and howling to Saint Lazarus of Artois to put on the brakes. Over the tail-board protruded the head of the poodle, yelping derision at his baffled enemies.

People will tell you Percherons cannot gallop; can't they? Believe me that grey mare flitted like a startled gazelle. At all events she was too good for our pack, whom we came upon a mile distant, lying on their backs in a ditch, too exhausted to do anything but put their tongues out at us, while far away we could see a small cloud of dust careering on towards the horizon.

"God help the Traffic Controlman at the next corner," Albert Edward mused; "he'll never know what struck him. Well, that was pretty cheery while it lasted, what? To see that purler the Padre took over the garden-wall was alone worth the money."

"Oh, well, I suppose we'd best herd these perishers home to kennels while they're still too weak to protest. Come on."

"And in the meanwhile the festive lapin breeds and breeds," said Albert Edward.

XXXI THE HARRIERS (II)

Albert Edward and I were seated on a log outside the hen-house which kennelled our pack when we perceived Algy, the A.D.C., tripping daintily towards us. Albert Edward blew a kiss. "Afternoon, Algy. How chit he looks in his pink and all! Tell me, do people ever mistake you for a cinema attendant and give you pennies?"

"Afternoon, Algy," said I. "Been spending a strenuous morn carrying the old man's respirator—with his lunch inside?"

For answer Algy tipped me backwards off the log, and sitting down in my place, contemplated our hounds for some seconds.

"And are these the notorious Hare-'em Scare-'ems?" he inquired.

I nodded. "Yessir; absolutely the one and only pack of harriers operating in the war zone. Guaranteed gun-broke, shell-shocked, shrapnel-pitted and bullet-bitten."

Algy sniffed. "What's that big brute over in the corner, he of the crumpled face and barbed smile? Looks like a bloodhound."

"Is a bloodhound," said Albert Edward. "If you don't believe me step inside and behave like raw rump steak for a moment."

Algy pointed his cane. "And that creature industriously delousing itself? That's a wolf, of course?"

"Its wolfery is only skin-deep," said I. "A grey gander all but annihilated it yesterday. In my opinion it's a sheep in wolf's clothing."

Algy wagged his cane, indicating the remaining two couples.

"And these? What breed would you call them?"

Albert Edward grunted. "You could call them any breed you like and be partly right. We've named them 'The Maconochies,' which, being interpreted, meaneth a little of everything."

"And how many hares have you killed?" Algy inquired.

"We haven't exactly killed any as yet," said I, "but we've put the breeze up 'em; their moral is very low."

"Well, my bold Nimrods," said Algy, "I'm sorry to say the game is up."

"What do you mean by 'game'?" objected Albert Edward. "I've told you before that this is a serious attempt to avert a plague of rodents. Why, in Australia I've seen——"

Algy held up his hand.

"I know, I know. But some people who have not enjoyed your harrowing Colonial experience are a trifle sceptical. Listen. Last evening, as I was driving home with the old man through Vaux-le-Tour, whom should I see but you two sportsmen out on the hillside riding down a hare, followed at some distance by three mounted bargees——"

"The Padre, the Field Cashier and O.C. Bugs," Albert Edward explained. "We're making men of 'em. Go on."

—"followed at a still greater distance," continued Algy, "by a raging band of mongrels. By the way, don't you get your hunt the wrong way round, the cart before the horse, so to speak? I always thought it customary for the hounds to go first."

"In some cases the hare wouldn't know it was being hunted if they did," said I. "This is one of them. Forge ahead."

"Well, so far so good; the old gent was drowsing in his corner and there was no harm done."

"So you gave him a dig in the ribs, I suppose, and bleated, 'Oh, look at naughty boys chasing ickle bunny wabbit!'" sneered Albert Edward.

Algy wagged his head. "Not me. You woke him up yourself, my son, by tootling on your little tin trumpet. He heard it through his dreams, shot up with a 'Good Lord, what's that?' popped his head out of the window and saw the brave cavalcade reeling out along the sky-line like a comic movie. He drank in the busy scene, then turned to me and said——"

Albert Edward interrupted. "I know exactly what he said. He said, 'Algy, me boy, that's the spirit. Vive le sport! How it reminds us of our young days in the Peninsular! Oft-times has our cousin of Wellington remarked to us how Waterloo was won on the playing——'"

Algy cut off the flow and continued with his piece. "He said to me, 'God bless my soul, if those young devils aren't galloping a hare!' I said, 'Sir, they maintain that they are doing good work by averting a threatened plague of rodents, a state of affairs which has proved very detrimental to the Anti-podes.'

"'Threatened plague of grandmothers!' replied the old warrior. 'They're enjoying themselves, that's what they're doing—having a splendid time. Mind you, I've no objection to you young chaps amusing yourselves in secret, but this is too damn flagrant altogether. Just imagine the hullabaloo in the House if word of these goings-on got home. "B.E.F. enjoying themselves! Don't they know there's a war on? Cherchez le général and off with his head!" Trot round and see your dog-fancying friends and tell 'em that if they're fond of good works I recommend crochet.' Thus the General. I must be off now, got to take the old bird up to have a peep at the War. Good-byee."

Algy tripped daintily off home again, twirling his cane and whistling cheerfully. Sourly we watched him depart.

"I believe that youth positively revels in spreading gloom," Albert Edward growled. "Oh, well, I suppose we'll have to get rid of the dogs now. Orders is orders."

"But do you think they'll go?" I asked. "We've been feeding 'em occasionally of late."

"We'll herd 'em down to where they can get wind of the infantry cookers," said Albert Edward; "once they sniff the rare old stew they'll forget all about us."

Accordingly an hour later we released our pack from the hen-house for the last time. They immediately gave chase to an errant tabby kitten, which threw off a noise like many siphons and shot up a tree, baffling them completely. We speedily herded them out of the château grounds, Albert Edward ambling in front, wringing mournful music out of his horn, and I bringing up the rear, snapping my whip-cracker under the sterns of the laggards. We had no sooner left the park for the open grass country beyond when up jumped a buck hare, right from under our feet, and away went the pack rejoicing, bass and falsetto.

Albert Edward tugged his excited mare to a standstill. "Look at those blighters!" he shouted. "Hunting noses down in pukka style for the first time, just because they know we can't follow them. Oh, this is too much!"

"I don't see why we shouldn't follow them at a distance," said I. "We can pretend there's no connection—there is no connection really, we didn't lay 'em on. They're hunting on their own. We're just out for a ride."

Albert Edward winked an eye at me and gave his mare her head. The pack by this time was well across the plain, the wolf leading, noisily supported by the Maconochies and the bloodhound. Thrice the hare turned clear and squatted, but, thanks to the blood dog's infallible nose, he was ousted each time and pushed on, failing visibly. He made a sharp curve towards the windmill, and Albert Edward and I topped the miller's fence in time to see the Maconochies roll him over among the weeds. We also saw something on the highway behind the mill which we had not previously noticed, namely a grey Limousine. On a fallen tree by the wayside sat the General, his face as highly coloured as his hat. Towards us down the garden-path tripped Algy, twirling his cane and whistling cheerily. Albert Edward groaned.

"Something in the demeanour of yon youth tells me he beareth our death-warrants. Here, you hold the horses while I feed the guillotine. This is by far, far the best thing that I have ever done."

He slung his reins and tottered to his doom. I watched him approach within five yards of the old man when a strange thing happened. The General suddenly uttered a loud cry and, leaping to his feet, commenced to dance up and down the road, tearing and belabouring himself and swearing so outrageously that I had difficulty in holding the horses. His chauffeur and Algy rushed to his side, and they and Albert Edward grouped in a sympathetic circle while he danced and raved and beat himself in their midst. Presently the air seemed to be full of flying tunics, shirts, camisoles, etc., and a second later I beheld the extraordinary spectacle of a Lieutenant-General dancing practically nude (expecting for his cap and boots) in the middle of a French highway, while two subalterns and a private smacked him all over, and most heartily. For nearly a minute it continued, and then he seemed to get himself under control and was led away by Algy to his car, the chauffeur following, retrieving apparel off trees and bushes. Albert Edward, one quivering smirk, wobbled up and took his reins. "By Jove! saved again. He can't very well bite the hand that spanked him, can he?"

"But what on earth was the matter?" I asked. "A fit, religious mania, a penance—what?"

"He sat on a waspodrome," said Albert Edward, "and they got on his tail."

XXXII THE CAMERA CANNOT LIE

When I was young I was extremely handsome. I have documentary evidence to prove as much. There is in existence a photograph of a young gentleman standing with his back to a raging seascape, one hand resting lightly on a volume of Shakespeare, which in turn is supported by a rustic table. The young gentleman has wide innocent eyes, a rosebud mouth and long golden curls (the sort poor dear old Romney used to do so nicely). For the rest he is tastefully upholstered in a short-panted velvet suit, a lace collar and white silk socks. "Little Lord Fauntleroy," you murmur to yourself. No, Sir (or Madam), it is ME—or was me, rather. When I was young no girl thought herself properly married unless I was present at the ceremony, got up like a prize rabbit and tethered to the far end of her train. Nowadays I am not so handsome. True, you can urge a horse past me without blindfolding it and all that, but nobody ever mistakes me for Maxine Elliott.

Personally I was quite willing to be represented at the National Portrait Gallery by a coloured copy of the presentment described above, but my home authorities thought otherwise, and when last I was in England on leave—shortly after the Battle of Agincourt—they shooed me off to Valpré. "Go to Valpré," they said; "he is so artistic." So to Valpré I went, and was admitted by a handmaid who waved a white hand vaguely towards a selection of doors, murmuring, "Wait there, please." I opened the nearest door at a venture and entered.

In the waiting-room three other handmaids were at work on photographs. One was painting dimples on a lady's cheek; one filling in gaps in a Second-Lieutenant's moustache; one straightening the salient of a stockbroker's waistcoat. Presently the first handmaid reappeared and somewhat curtly (I was waiting in the wrong room, it seemed) informed me that the Master was ready. So I went upstairs to the operating theatre. After an impressive interval a curtain was thrust aside and the Master entered. He was not in the least like the artist of my first photograph, who had chirruped and done tricks with an indiarubber monkey to make me prick my ears and appear sagacious. This man had the mane of a poodle, a plush smoking-jacket with rococo trimmings, satin cravat, rings and bangles like the lads in La Bohème, and I knew myself to be in the presence of True Art, and bowed my head.

At the sight of me he winced visibly; didn't seem to like my looks at all. However he pulled himself together and advanced to reconnoitre. He pushed me into a chair, manipulated some screws at the back, and I found my head fast in a steel clamp. I pleaded for gas or cocaine, but he took no notice and prowled off to the far end of the theatre to observe if distance would lend any enchantment. Apparently it would not. The more he saw of me the less he seemed to admire the view.

Suddenly the fire of inspiration lit his eye and he came for me. I struggled with the clamp, but it clave like a bull-terrier to a mutton chop. In a moment he had me by the head and started to mould it nearer to his heart's desire with plump powerful hands. He crammed half my lower jaw into my breast pocket, pinned my ears back so tightly that they wouldn't wag for weeks, pressed my nose down with his thumb as though it were the button of an electric bell and generally kneaded my features from the early Hibernian to the late Græco-Roman. Then, before they could rebound to their normal positions, he had sprung back, jerked the lanyard and fired the camera.

Some weeks later the finished photographs arrived. The handmaids had done their bit, and the result was a pleasing portraiture, an objet d'art, an ornament to anybody's family album. The man Valpré was an artist all right.

A few days ago the Skipper whistled me into the orderly room. His table was littered with parade states, horse-registers and slips of cardboard, all intermingled. The Skipper himself appeared to be undergoing some heavy mental disturbance. His forehead was furrowed, his toupet rumpled, and he sucked his fountain-pen, unconsciously imbibing much dark nourishment.

"Identification cards," he explained, indicating the slips. "Got to carry 'em now. Comply with Italian regulations. Been trying to describe you. Napoo." He prodded the result towards me. I scanned it and decided he had got it mixed with horse-registers. It read as follows:—

The Skipper pointed to the blank space. "That's what I want to know—special marks. Got any? Snip, blaze, white fetlock, anything?"

"Yessir," said I. "Strawberry patch on off gaskin."

He sucked thoughtfully at his fountain-pen. "Mmph," he said, "shouldn't mention it if I were you. Don't want to have to undress in the middle of the street every time you meet an Intelligence, do you?" I agreed that I did not—not before June, anyhow. The Skipper turned to the card again and frowned.

"Couldn't call it a speaking likeness exactly, this little pen-picture of you, could one? If you only had a photograph of yourself now."

"I have, Sir," said I brightly.

"Good Lord, man, why didn't you say so before? Here, take this and paste the thing in. Now trot away."

I trotted away and pasted Valpré's objet d'art on to the card.

Yesterday evening Albert Edward and I were riding out of a certain Italian town (no names, no pack drill). Albert Edward got involved in a right-of-way argument between five bullock wagons and two lorries, and I jogged on ahead. On the fringe of the town was a barrier presided over by a brace of Carabinieri caparisoned with war material, whiskers and cocked hats of the style popularised by Bonaparte. Also an officer. As I moved to pass the barrier the officer spied me and, not liking my looks (as I hinted before, nobody does), signed to me to halt. Had I an identification card, please? I had and handed it to him. He took the card and ran a keen eye over the Skipper's little pen-picture and Valpré's "Portrait Study," then over their alleged original. "Lieutenant," said he grimly, "these don't tally. This is not you."

I protested that it was. He shook his head with great conviction, "Never! The nose in this photograph is straight; the ears retiring; the jaw, normal. While with you—— [Continental politeness restrained him]. Lieutenant, you must come with me."

He beckoned to a Napoleonic corporal, who approached, clanking his war material. I saw myself posed for a firing squad at grey dawn and shivered all over. I detest early rising.

By this time the corporal had outflanked me, clanking more munitions, and I was on the point of being marched off to the Bastille, or whatever they call it, when Albert Edward suddenly insinuated himself into the party and addressed himself to the officer. "Half a minute, Mongsewer [any foreigner is Mongsewer to Albert Edward]. The photograph is of him all right, but it was taken before his accident."

"His accident?" queried the officer.

"Yes," said Albert Edward; "sad affair, shell-shock. A crump burst almost in his face, and shocked it all out of shape. Can't you see?"

The Italian leaned forward and subjected my flushed features to a piercing scrutiny; then his dark eyes softened almost to tears, and he handed me back my card and saluted.

"Sir, you have my apologies—and sympathy. Good evening."

"Albert Edward," said I, as we trotted into the dusk, "you may be a true friend but you are no gentleman."

XXXIII LIONEL TRELAWNEY

Lionel Trelawney Molyneux-Molyneux was of the race of the Beaux. Had he flourished in the elegant days, Nash would have taken snuff with him, D'Orsay wine—no less. As it was, the high priests of Savile Row made obeisance before him, the staff of the Tailor and Cutter penned leaders on his waistcoats, and the lilies of the field whined "Kamerad" and withered away.

When war broke out Lionel Trelawney issued from his comfortable chambers in St. James's and took a hand in it. He had no enthusiasm for blood-letting. War, he maintained from the first, was a vulgar pastime, a comfortless revolting state of affairs which bored one stiff, forced one to associate with all sorts of impossible people and ruined one's clothes. Nevertheless the West-end had to be saved from an invasion of elastic-sided boots, celluloid dickeys, Tyrolese hats and musical soup-swallowing. That was his war-aim.

Through the influence of an aunt at the War Office he obtained a commission at once, and after a month's joining-leave (spent closeted with his tailor) he appeared, a shining figure, in the Mess of the Loamshire Light Infantry and with them adventured to Gallipoli. It is related that during the hell of that first landing, when boats were capsizing, wounded men being dragged under by tentacles of barbed wire, machine-guns whipping the sea to bloody froth, Lionel Trelawney was observed standing on a prominent part of a barge, his eye-glass fixed on his immaculate field boots, petulantly remarking, "And now, damn it, I suppose I've got to get wet!"

After the evacuation the battalion went to France, but not even the slush of the salient or the ooze of Festubert could dim his splendour. Whenever he got a chance he sat down, cat-like, and licked himself. Wherever he went his batman went also, hauling a sackful of cleaning gear and changes of raiment. On one occasion, hastening to catch the leave train, he spurred his charger into La Bassée Canal. He emerged, like some river deity, profusely decorated in chick-weed, his eyeglass still in his eye ("Came up like a blinking U-boat," said a spectator, "periscope first"), footed it back to billets and changed, though it cost him two days of his leave.

He was neither a good nor a keen officer. He was not frightened—he had too great a contempt for war to admit the terror of it—but he gloomed and brooded eternally and made no effort to throw the faintest enthusiasm into his job. Yet for all that the Loamshires suffered him. He had his uses—he kept the men amused. In that tense time just before an attack, when the minute hand was jerking nearer and nearer to zero, when nerves were strung tight and people were sending anxious inquiries after Lewis guns, S.A.A., stretchers, bombs, etc., Lionel Trelawney would say to his batman, "Have you got the boot and brass polish, the Blanco, the brushes? Sure?" (a sigh of relief). "Very well, now we'll be getting on," and so would send his lads scrambling over the parapet grinning from east to west.

"Where's ole Collar and Cuffs?" some muddy warrior would shout after a shrieking tornado of shell had swept over them. "Dahn a shell-hole cleanin' his teef," would come the answer, and the battered platoon chuckled merrily. "'E's a card, 'e is," said his Sergeant admiringly. "Marched four miles back to billets in 'is gas-mask, perishin' 'ot, all because he'd lost 'is razor an' 'adn't shaved for two days. 'E's a nut 'e is and no error."

It happened that the Loamshires were given a job of crossing Mr. Hindenburg's well-known ditch and taking a village on the other side. A company of tanks, which came rolling out of the dawn-drizzle, spitting fire from every crack, put seven sorts of wind up the Landsturmer gentlemen in possession; and the Loamshires, getting their first objectives with very light casualties, trotted on for their second in high fettle, sterns up and wagging proudly. The tanks went through the village knocking chips off the architecture and pushing over houses that got in the way; and the Loamshires followed after, distributing bombs among the cellars.

The consolidation was proceeding when Lionel Trelawney sauntered on the scene, picking his way delicately through the débris of the main street. He lounged up to a group of Loamshire officers, yawned, told them how tired he was, cursed the drizzle for dimming his buttons and strolled over to a dug-out with the object of sheltering there. He got no further than the entrance, for as he reached it a wide-eyed German came scrambling up the steps and collided with him, bows on. For a full second the two stood chest to chest gaping, too surprised to move. Then the Hun turned and bolted. But this time Lionel Trelawney was not too bored to act. He drew his revolver and rushed after him like one possessed, firing wildly. Two shots emptied a puddle, one burst a sandbag, one winged a weather-cock and one went just anywhere. His empty revolver caught the flying Hun in the small of the back as he vaulted over a wall; and Lionel Trelawney vaulted after him.

"Molly's gone mad," shouted his amazed brother-officers as they scrambled up a ruin for a better view of the hunt. The chase was proceeding full-cry among the small gardens of the main street. It was a stirring spectacle. The Hun was sprinting for dear life, Lionel Trelawney hard on his brush, yelping like a frenzied fox-terrier. They plunged across tangled beds, crashed through crazy fences, fell head over heels, picked themselves up again and raced on, wheezing like punctured bagpipes.

Heads of Atkinses poked up everywhere. "S'welp me if it ain't ole Collar and Cuffs! Go it, Sir, that's the stuff to give 'em!" A Yorkshireman opened a book and started to chant the odds, but nobody paid any attention to him. The Hun, badly blown, dodged inside a shattered hen-house. Lionel Trelawney tore up handfuls of a ruined wall and bombed him out of it with showers of brickbats. Away went the chase again, cheered by shrill yoicks and cat-calls from the spectators.

Suddenly there was an upheaval of planks and brick-dust, and both runners disappeared.

"Gone to ground, down a cellar," exclaimed the brother-officers. "Oh, look! Fritz is crawling out."

The white terrified face of the German appeared on the ground level, then with a wriggle (accompanied by a loud noise of rending material) he dragged his body up and was on his way once more. A second later Lionel Trelawney was up as well, waving a patch of grey cloth in his hand. "Molly's ripped the seat out of his pants," shouted the grand-stand. "Yow, tear 'm, Pup!" "Good ole Collar and Cuffs!" chorused the Loamshire Atkinses.

Lionel Trelawney responded nobly; he gained one yard, two yards, five, ten. The Hun floundered into a row of raspberry canes, tripped and wallowed in the mould. Trelawney fell on him like a Scot on a three-penny bit and they rolled out of sight locked in each other's embrace.

The Loamshires jumped down from their crazy perches and doubled to see the finish, guided by the growlings, grunts, crashing of raspberry canes and jets of garden mould flung sky-high. They were too late, however. They met the victor propelling the remains of the vanquished up a lane towards them. His fawn breeches were black with mould, his shapely tunic shredded to ribbons; his sleek hair looked like a bird's-nest; his nose listed to starboard; one eye bulged like a shuttered bow-window; his eye-glass was not. But the amazing thing about it was that he didn't seem to mind; he beamed, in fact, and with a cheery shout to his friends—"Merry little scamper—eh, what?"—he drop-kicked his souvenir a few yards further on, exclaiming, "That'll teach you to slop soup over my shirt-front, you rude fellow!"

"Soup over your shirt-front!" babbled the Loamshires. "What are you talking about?"

"Talking about?" said Lionel Trelawney. "Why, this arch-ruffian used to be a waiter at Claritz's, and he shed mulligatawny all over my glad-rags one night three years ago—aggravated me fearfully."

XXXIV THE BOOBY TRAP

A generous foe, the soul of chivalry, I am always ready to admit that the Boche has many good points. For instance, he is—er—er—oh, well, I can't think of any particular good point just for the moment. On the other hand, it must be admitted that he has his bad ones also, and one of these is that he cannot stand success; he is the world's worst winner.

Never does he pull off one of these "victorious retreats" of his but he needs must spoil the effect by leaving behind all sorts of puerile booby traps, butter-slides, etc., for the annoyance of the on-sweeping vanquished, displaying a state of mind which is usually slippered out of one at a dame school.

Most of his practical jokes are of the fifth of November order and detonate by means of a neat arrangement of springs, wire and acid contained in a small metal cylinder.

You open a door and the attached house blows away all round it, leaving the door in your damaged hand. You step on a duckboard; something goes bang! and the duckboard ups and hits you for a boundary to leg—and so on, all kinds of diversions.

Of course you don't really open doors and prance on duckboards; that's only what he (Jerry) in his simple faith imagines you will do. In reality you revive memories of the days when as a small boy you tied trip-strings in dark passages and balanced water-jugs on door-tops; and all the Boche's elementary parlour-tricks immediately become revealed unto you.

Not long ago the Hun, thirsting for yet more imperishable laurels, made a sudden masterly manoeuvre towards the East. Our amateur Staff instantly fell into the trap, and when battle joined again we found we had been lured twenty miles nearer Germany.

The Hun had not left things very comfortable for us; most of the cover had been blown up, and there was the usual generous provision of booby traps lying about dumbly pleading to be touched off. However, we sheltered in odd holes and corners, scrounged about for what we could "souvenir" and made ourselves as snug as possible.

It was while riding out alone on one of these souveniring expeditions that our William came upon a chaff-cutter standing in what had once been the stable yard of what had once been a château. Now to a mounted unit a chaff-cutter is a thing of incredible value. It is to us what a mincing-machine is to the frugal housewife.

Our own cutter was with the baggage, miles away in the rear, and likely to remain there.

William slipped off his horse and approached the thing gingerly. It was a Boche engine, evidently quite new and in excellent trim. This was altogether too good to be true; there must be a catch somewhere. William withdrew twenty yards and hurled a brick at it—two, three, four bricks. Nothing happened. He approached again and tying one end of a wrecked telephone wire to it, retired behind a heap of rubble and tugged.

The chaff-cutter rocked to and fro and finally fell over on its side without anything untoward occurring. William, wiping beads from his brow, came out of cover. There was no catch in it after all. It was a perfectly genuine bit of treasure-trove. The Skipper would pat his curly head, say "Good boy," and exalt him above all the other subalterns. Bon—very bon!

But how to get it home? For you cannot carry full-grown chaff-cutters about in your breeches pockets. For one thing it spoils the set of your pants. He must get a limber. Yes, but how?

The country was quick with other cavalrymen all in the souvenir business. If he left the chaff-cutter in order to fetch a limber, one of them would be sure to snap it up. On the other hand, if he waited for a limber to come trotting up of its own sweet will he might conceivably wait for the rest of the War. Limbers (G.S. Mule) are not fairy coaches.

Our William was up against it. He plunged his hands into his tunic-pockets and commenced to stride up and down, thinking to the best of his ability.

In pocketing his right hand he encountered some hard object. On drawing the object forth he discovered it to be his mother's gift. William's mother, under the impression that her son spends most of his time lying wounded and starving out in No-man's land, keeps him liberally supplied with tabloid meals to sustain him on these occasions—herds of bison corralled into one lozenge, the juice of myriad kine concentrated in a single capsule. This particular gift was of peppermints (warranted to assuage thirst for weeks on end). But it was not the peppermints that engaged William's young fancy; it was the container, small, metal, cylindrical.

His inspiration took fire. He set the tin under the chaff-cutter, chopped off a yard of telephone wire, buried one end in peppermints, twisted the other about the leg of the cutter, mounted his horse and rode for dear life.

When he returned with the limber an hour later, he found three cavalrymen, two horse-gunners and a transporteer grouped at a respectful radius round the chaff-cutter, daring each other to jerk the wire.

When William stepped boldly forward and jerked the wire they all flung themselves to earth and covered their heads. When nothing happened and he coolly proceeded to load the cutter on the limber they all sat up again and took notice.

When he picked up the tin and offered them some peppermints they mounted their horses and rode away.

XXXV THE PHANTOM ARMY

I can readily believe that war as performed by Messieurs our ancestors was quite good fun. You dressed up in feathers and hardware—like something between an Indian game-cock and a tank—and caracoled about the country on a cart-horse, kissing your hand to balconies and making very liberal expenses out of any fat (and unarmed) burgesses that happened along.

With the first frost you went into winter quarters—i.e. you turned into the most convenient castle and whiled away the dark months roasting chestnuts at a log fire, entertaining the ladies with quips, conundrums and selections on the harpsichord and vying with the jester in the composition of Limericks.

The profession of arms in those spacious days was both pleasant and profitable. Nowadays it is neither; it is a dreary mélange of mud, blood, boredom and blue-funk (I speak for myself).

Yet even it, miserable calamity that it is (or was), has produced its piquant situations, its high moments; and one manages to squeeze a sly smile out of it all, here and there, now and again.

I have heard the skirl of the Argyll and Sutherland battle-pipes in the Borghese Gardens and seen a Highlander dance the sword-dance before applauding Rome. I have seen the love-locks of a matinée idol being trimmed with horse-clippers (weep, O ye flappers of Suburbia!) and a Royal Academician set to whitewash a pig-sty. I have seen American aviators in spurs, Royal Marines a-horse, and a free-born Australian eating rabbit. All these things have I seen.

And of high moments I have experienced plenty of late, for it has been my happy lot to be in the front of the hunt that has swept the unspeakable Boche back off a broad strip of France and Belgium, and the memory of the welcome accorded to us, the first British, by the liberated inhabitants will remain with us until the last "Lights Out." The procedure was practically the same throughout.

There would come a crackle of wild rifle-fire from the front of a village; then, as we worked round to the flank, a dozen or so blue-cloaked Uhlans would scamper out of the rear and disappear at a non-stop gallop for home. In a second the street would be full of people, emptying out of houses and cellars, pressing about us, shaking hands, kissing us and our horses even, smothering us with flowers, cheering "Vivent les Anglais!", "Vive la France!" clamouring, laughing, crying, mad with joy.

Grandmères would appear at attic windows waving calico tricolours (hidden for four long years) while others plastered up tricolour hand-bills—"Hommage à nos Liberateurs," "God's blessing unto Tommy."

However, touching and delightful though it all might be, it was not getting on with the war; this embarras des amis was saving the Uhlans' hide.

Furthermore, though I can bring myself to bear with a certain amount of embracing from attractive young things, I do not enjoy the salutations of unshorn old men; and when Mayors and Corporations got busy my native modesty rebelled, and I would tear myself loose and, with my steed decorated from ears to croup with flowers, so that I looked more like a perambulating hot-house than a poor soldier-man, take up the pursuit once more.

In due course we came to the considerable town of X. All happened as before. As we popped in at one flank the bold Uhlan popped out at the other, and the townsfolk flooded the streets. I was dragged out of the saddle, kissed, pump-handled and cheered while my bewildered charger was led aside and festooned with pink roses. Tricolours appeared at every window; handbills of welcome were distributed broadcast. The Mayor and Corporation arrived at the double, and we struggled together for some moments while they rasped me with their stubbly beards. When the first ecstasies had somewhat abated I gathered my troop and prepared to move again.

"Whither away?" the Mayor enquired, a fine old veteran he, wearing two 1870 medals and the ribbon of the Legion.

"To Z.," said I.

"Ecoutez, donc," he warned. "They are waiting for you there in force, machine-guns and cannon."

I intimated that nevertheless I must go and have a look-see, at any rate, and so rode out of town, the vast crowd accompanying us to the outskirts, cheering, shouting advice, warnings and blessings. In sight of Z. we shed our floral tributes and, debouching off the highway into the open, worked forwards on the look-out for trouble.

It came. A dozen pip-squeaks shrilled overhead to cause considerable casualties among some neighbouring cabbages, and shortly afterwards rifle-fire opened from outlying cottages. I swung round and tried for an opening to the north, but a couple of machine-guns promptly gave tongue on that flank. Another flock of pip-squeaks kicked up the mould in front of us and some fresh rifles and machine-guns joined in. Too hot altogether.

I was just deciding to give it best and cut for cover when all hostile fire suddenly switched off, and a few minutes later I beheld light guns on lorries, machine-guns in motor-cars and Uhlans on horses stampeding out of the village by all roads east.

The day was mine. Yip, Yip! Bonza! Skoo-kum! Hurroosh! Nevertheless I was properly bewildered, for it was absurd to suppose that an overwhelming force of heavily-armed Huns could have been bluffed out of a strong position by the merest handful of unsupported cavalry. Manifestly absurd!

I turned about, and in so doing my eye lit on the poplar-lined highway from X., and I understood. Along the road poured the hordes of an advancing army, advancing in somewhat irregular column of route, with banners flying. The head of the column was not a mile distant. The Infantry must be on my heels, thought I. Stout marching! I grabbed up my glasses, took a long look and bellowed with laughter. It was not the Infantry at all; it was the liberated population of X., headed by the Mayor and Corporation, come out to see the fun, the grandmères and grandpères, the girls and boys, the dogs and babies, marching, hobbling, skipping, toddling down the pave, waving their calico tricolours and singing the Marseillaise. I thought of the Boche fleeing eastward with the fear of God in his soul, and rolled about in my saddle drunk with joy.