THE WILLING HORSE (continued 3)

Liss hurriedly introduced Marjorie. Lancaster shook hands.

"I think we can find a place for you in the show," he said, regarding her with critical approval. "Can you sing?"

Marjorie, with a sudden and incongruous recollection of the harmonium at Netherby on Sunday afternoons, smiled, and replied that she could sing a little.

"Mr. Kay will try your voice after rehearsal. No previous experience, I suppose?"

"No."

"It doesn't matter. You had better sit and watch this rehearsal this morning, and try to learn our language. Baby, my dear, run along and get into your place."

Liss, who appeared to be the enfant gâté of the establishment, scampered away, and presently appeared among the chattering throng on the prompt side. Mr. Lancaster clapped his hands. There was silence.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen," he explained, "we are going to try the first new number in the Second Act—'Honolulu Lulu.' Places, please, and try to put some ginger in it this time! You come on laughing and chatting. Now—commence!" He clapped his hands again. "For pity's sake, everybody, desist! Gentlemen, gentlemen, remember that you are happy South Sea Islanders, without a care in the world—not welshers coming back from a dirty day at Kempton! Again, please! And ladies, don't come bolting on in that panic-stricken way. You aren't taking shelter from an air raid; you are young village belles, come to participate in the Annual Festival of the Sun! You are joyful! You are glad! You are going to sing about it! For the Lord's sake, smile! Phil, old man, the symphony once more, if you please! All come in at the end of six bars. La-la! La-la! La-la! Now, all together! No! no! no! no!" Mr. Lancaster clapped his hands and beat his breast alternately. "Ladies, ladies, ladies! Let me tell you, for the last time, that it is a human impossibility to sing with the mouth shut! It can't be done! For generations and centuries people have been trying to sing out of their noses, and their ears, and the back of their necks; but no one has ever succeeded yet. Open your little mouths! Open them wide! And keep them open, for the love of Mike!"

And so on, until a standard of approximate harmony was attained.

IV

Next day Marjorie walked on at her first rehearsal, and practised the new numbers with the rest. Mr. Lancaster's attitude towards her was the same as Mr. Lee's. That is to say, he addressed her much as an old gentleman of seventy might address a little girl of six.

"Now, dear, I know you are feeling nervous, and aren't going to do yourself justice, just at first—"

"I am not a bit nervous, thank you," said Marjorie.

"Oh, yes, you are," said Mr. Lancaster. "But remember that I understand about that, and am making allowances all the time. So don't be frightened; but keep your head up, and sing out, that's a good girl!"

"He's a hard nut," remarked her next-door neighbour into her ear—"but he never swears at you. At least, if he does, he always apologises afterwards. He's quite a gentleman."

In a few days Marjorie was admitted an accepted member of the choral sisterhood. She found her colleagues, for the most part, young, friendly, talkative, excitable, and as improvident as grasshoppers. Most of them possessed a "boy" of some kind—usually a callow subaltern of the one-star brand, with a vocabulary largely composed of the expressions "priceless" and "pathetic." Some of them were married. A few had husbands actually out in France, or farther afield. One or two had babies, and talked about them a good deal.

Of the principals, Miss St. Leger, with her magnetic personality and tough little Chicago voice, was a prime favourite with everybody. Her hold over the audience was wonderful: she could galvanise a Wednesday matinée into enthusiasm. Compared with her, the second girl, Phyllis Lane, was no more than an attractive amateur. But both were kind to their humbler sisters. Indeed, nearly everybody was kind to everybody in those days. The theatrical profession is conspicuous for its big generosities and petty jealousies. In August, nineteen-sixteen, the former had almost entirely obliterated the latter. A huge daily casualty-list is a very levelling—indeed, binding—influence, especially in such a community; there was not a girl in the chorus at the Imperial who had not an interest, actual or prospective, in that casualty-list.

The male members of the company, as was only natural at the time, were remarkable neither for their youth nor their physical fitness. In addition to the phlebitic Ames, there were—Jack Hopeleigh, a well-preserved hero with a light baritone—he was registered under the Derby Scheme in group forty-three; Hubert Hartshorn, a comic manservant, who owed his irresistible wheezy laugh to the fact that he had been badly gassed at Ypres more than twelve months previously, and was now discharged permanently unfit; and one Valentine Rigg, a stage lawyer, who for forty years had earned a modest but steady income by arriving in the Third Act with a black bag, and clearing up all misunderstandings just before the clock struck eleven.

To the student of humanity the chorus gentlemen were really more interesting than the principals. There was a dismal individual named Chivers, who now kept a stationer's shop in Brixton, but had once been in grand opera—Carl Rosa's chorus. He contributed a reedy tenor to the ensemble. There was a plump little man with a round face and little tufts of white whisker, invaluable in scenes of revelry where guests of the "jolly old uncle" type were required. This was his first theatrical engagement for fifteen years. In the interim he had supported life with invincible cheerfulness, as a bookmaker's clerk, a traveller in hymn-books, and head-waiter in an old-fashioned Brighton hotel. There was a discharged corporal of the Machine Gun Corps, with lungs of brass, the D.C.M. ribbon on his waistcoat, and twenty-seven fragments of German H.E. in his left leg. There was an unpleasant-looking youth named Mervyn, with bobbed hair and a patronising manner—debarred from volunteering his services to his country by reason of a susceptibility to chills upon the liver. Popular rumour located these elsewhere.

And there was Alf Spender—"Uncle Ga-Ga." His age was a mystery. His own estimate, for war purposes, was forty-one. The ladies of the chorus put it among themselves at a hundred and fifty. It was possibly fifty-four, or thereabouts. He was a frail creature, with a simple soul, and what Americans call a "single-track" mind. He had been a super or chorus man ever since he could remember; and until the year nineteen fourteen had never relinquished a humble ambition to achieve a speaking part. But now all that was cast to the winds. His single track was carrying other traffic. Somewhere within his ill-nourished frame burned the pure white flame of genuine patriotism. His one desire was to be admitted to the privilege of khaki, and to do his humble part in "teaching those dirty Germans a lesson." He never rested in his efforts to qualify. He dyed his scanty locks; he endeavoured, by daily study of a manual of Swedish exercises, to school his feeble limbs and sickly body to the requisite pitch of efficiency. He offered himself at every recruiting station in London, giving a different name at each. But all in vain; no one would accept him. He could pass no physical test; a big heart was not enough.

"Still, I haven't given up hope," he confided to Marjorie. "I have just discovered a really admirable hair-tonic; and there's a new strengthening-food come on the market, which may help. Of course, the chief difficulty is my teeth; an M.O. turns me down the moment he examines them! I haven't many, you see, and what I have don't fit together very well; and good dentistry runs into money—a fiver, at least. But I don't despair—not by any means. They will want me in time! It seems inhuman to say so, but I do trust this battle that's just started on the Somme won't finish the war right off. I couldn't bear to see the troops coming back victorious, and feel that I did nothing to help!"

Here was another Willing Horse. Marjorie's heart warmed to him; they became friends. They shared a newspaper at rehearsals, discussing Sir Douglas Haig's daily bulletin word by word. They read between the lines, and decided that, despite newspaper heroics to the contrary, the gigantic offensive of July the First had only been partially successful.

"We never got through on the left at all," said Alf. "Look at that place on the map—Thiepval. We were meant to carry that bang off, and we didn't! They don't say so, but we didn't! We have broken their line all right, but the trouble is that we have broken it on too narrow a front—and I think it's all because of that Thiepval place. We must widen the gap, or the attack fails. Shall I tell you what I would do if I were head of the Army Council?"

"Yes—do," said Marjorie, eagerly.

"I would secretly construct some sort of contrivance that would protect our troops as they dashed across No Man's Land. That's the most dangerous moment. I'm not worrying about artillery fire, mind you! You may dodge that, or you may not; anyhow, there's a sporting chance about it. It's those machine guns! The Germans have them fixed in such a way that when they are all fired at once there is not a yard of ground that isn't a running river of bullets. Now mark you, once we get across that bullet zone, we have the Hun at our mercy. We British"—Alf's emaciated frame stiffened exultantly—"can do anything with the bayonet! But we must get across first!"

"But how?" Marjorie sighed despairingly.

"I don't know: I haven't enough technical knowledge. But some sort of armour-plated motor 'bus would be the idea. I'll bet old Kitchener would have fixed it, if he'd been alive. Oh, dear!" (The Hampshire had gone down some six weeks previously.) "By the way, have you heard from Mr. Birnie of late?"

Then Marjorie would tell him all Roy's news. Naturally it contained little of military value, but our two enthusiasts read it—or rather, approved portions thereof—with all the solemn deference due to the Authority on the Spot.

"He may get home on leave some time soon," Marjorie said. "He went out last August, and it's July now. Leave is long over-due, but they stopped it all for weeks before the battle. His battalion was in the opening attack, I think, but they are out now, refitting."

"It must have been an anxious time for you while they were in," said Alf. "Did you know?"

"Yes—at least, I knew a few weeks before that they were at Bray-sur-Somme; so when the news of the attack came I felt pretty certain."

Alf's mild blue eyes flashed.

"I wish I had been with him," he said, "instead of"—he glanced disparagingly downstage, to where Phil Kay, entrenched in the orchestra, was resisting Tubby Ames's bi-weekly offensive—"this! It must be a grand moment, coming back to rest, right out of a battle—all mud-splashed, and exhausted, knowing you have made good! Did he give you any details when he wrote?"

"The only detail that mattered," said Marjorie with an unsteady little laugh, "was this!"

She produced a field post card—muddy, crumpled, evidently dispatched by the grimy hand of a stretcher-bearer or a ration orderly. On the back were printed certain alternative statements, familiar enough by this time, designed by the authorities to cover all the chances incident to the life of a soldier in the field. They were all deleted with a blunt pencil, save the first:

I am well.

"That was the nicest letter I ever had from him!" said Marjorie.

"And I bet that's saying a good deal!" replied Alf, with a stately little bow. "Now, touching this Delville Wood, on the right—"

But here the battle-call of Mr. Lancaster was heard in the stalls; and our strategists turned reluctantly from the prosecution of the military campaign to the maintenance of civilian morale.

V

The Second Edition was produced in due course, with the success inevitable in that enthusiastic, unsophisticated, carpe diem period. Marjorie appeared successively, and with distinction, as a Lady Guest at the reception of a most unconvincing Duchess, where she flourished an empty champagne glass painted yellow inside; as a Bird of Paradise in the chorus of an ornithological ditty entitled, "If my Girl was a Bird, I would Build Her a Nest," contributed by the well-preserved light baritone aforementioned; as a damsel of the South Sea Islands, participating, with somewhat improbable ritual, in the Annual Festival of the Sun; and in other less exacting roles. Her most distinguished appearance was in the Finale (in a tableau of the Allied Nations), as The Spirit of France. In this she was entrusted with a separate entrance, a solitary walk down stage, and the deliverance of a rhymed couplet of a patriotic nature, in which General Joffre suffered the indignity of rhyming with "Our hats we doff," "nasty cough." She was quite composed, and offered her outrageous contribution with such aplomb as to arouse frantic applause. Liss was a dancer, and her activities were mostly linked with those of seven other little creatures like herself. She was whole-heartedly delighted with her friend's successful graduation.

Next morning the company were called at eleven, to be photographed. The morning after, Marjorie reported for duty at the canteen, and was received with open arms by the Mouldy Old Copper. With renewed enthusiasm she settled down to the old drudgery. She was supporting herself; her long and dreary evenings were over; and, best of all, she was really Doing Something to Help.

VI

One morning a few weeks later Mrs. Clegg was deposited by the Rolls-Royce at the front door of Buckholm, and was ushered by Mr. Bates into the amber drawing-room. She entered with the uneasy self-consciousness of the visitor to a great house who has come, not to pay an intimate call, but to attend a committee meeting.

"The other ladies have not yet arrived, madam," announced Bates; and added, in stately reproof: "It is not quite eleven o'clock. Her ladyship will be down presently. Will you please to be seated?" He deposited the flustered and untimely caller upon a sofa, handed her a magazine, and left her alone.

Mrs. Clegg mechanically turned over the pages of the magazine. It was one of those periodicals which was doing its characteristic best at that time to compensate our warriors in the field for compulsory severance from domestic felicity by a weekly display, on a generous—nay, prodigal—scale, of the forms and features of loved ones far away—particularly of such as happened to be connected with the lighter walks of the lyric drama. Mrs. Clegg's eye was caught by a photograph on the middle page—of a tall, slender girl, draped from head to foot in what looked like a flag, with the Cap of Liberty perched upon her fair head. The face seemed familiar. Mrs. Clegg adjusted her tortoise-shell lorgnette—at home, when reading, she wore simple spectacles—and examined the photograph in greater detail. Then she perused the journalistic effusion underneath. It began:

One cannot have Too Many Girls of This Kind, Can one?...

Mrs. Clegg was a dutiful wife. On her way home she stopped at the railway station and bought a copy of the magazine at the book-stall. After dinner she showed the middle page to her husband. It was a courageous act, for no such literature had ever been introduced into Netherby before.

That night, when the household had retired to bed, Albert Clegg reopened the Family Bible, lying since prayers at the head of the dining-room table; turned to the Births, Marriages, and Deaths and sent his fountain-pen scouting down the first column. Presently he came to the name he wanted. He scored it out—scored it, and scored it, to complete obliteration. When he had finished, Marjorie had joined Aunt Eliza in the ranks of the Legion of the Lost.

CHAPTER IX

THE BOOK OF THE WORDS

We were due back in the line that night, and I was struggling, in company with one humid orderly-room sergeant and several hundred houseflies, to clean up the usual orderly-room mess—indents, returns, and other nuisances which, in the absence of the adjutant, usually fall upon the patient shoulders of that regimental tweeny, the second-in-command.

I was seated at the kitchen table of a farm-house in Picardy. The weather had been wet and misty for weeks—the weather at critical moments in this war was invariably pro-Boche—but this afternoon the sun had reappeared and summer had come back with a rush. Still, on the overworked highway outside mud still lay deep. At the farm-gate two transport men were admonishing two mules, in the only way they knew, for indicating reluctance (in the only way they knew) to hauling the headquarters company's field-kitchen out of the oozy ruts where it had reposed for ten days. Through the open door, looking east, I could descry the wrecked spire of Albert Church, with its golden Virgin and Child projecting horizontally from the summit, like the flame of a candle in a steady draught.

To my ears all the time, through the heavy summer air, came the incessant muffled thunder of guns, and guns, and more guns—British guns, new British guns; hundreds of them—informing Brother Boche that he, the originator of massed artillery tactics, was "for it" himself at last. The bombardment had begun systematically about the middle of the month, all up and down the Western Front. Last Saturday it had intensified in the neighbourhood of the Somme and Ancre Valleys; I had lain awake in my billet, listening, and recalling that summer afternoon, less than two years ago, when Lord Eskerley had gloomily explained to me that it took at least three years to make a British gunner. This afternoon the whole earth trembled; the final eruption could not be much longer delayed.

For Britain was ready to strike at last. True, she had struck before, both recently and frequently; but that had been mainly in self-defence, or for experiment, or to create a diversion. Now she was in a position to strike home. For nearly two years the Willing Horse had stood up indomitably under the strain, while a nation, mainly willing, but shamefully unready, was getting into condition. To-day that nation was ready; every man worth his salt was at last a trained soldier. Never before in our history had such an army been gathered, and never again would such an army be seen, as strained at the leash behind that twenty-five mile front on the thirtieth of June, nineteen sixteen. True, we launched greater armies, and won greater victories in the two years that followed; but—the very flower of a race can bloom but once in a generation. The flower of our generation bloomed and perished during the four months of the First Battle of the Somme. We shall not look upon their like again. It is to be doubted if any generation will—or any race.

Sometimes, in these later days of reaction and uncertainty, we are inclined to wonder whether that sacrifice was justified; whether it would not have been better to wait just a little longer. But in truth we had waited long enough. Strategy might advocate delay, but honour could not. For four months Verdun had stood up like a rock against the rolling tide of assault; it was time we took some weight off Verdun's shoulders. For two years the half-equipped armies of Russia had maintained a suicidal offensive on our account; even now fresh German divisions were streaming away from the Western Front to the Eastern. It was time we called them back. Strategy or no strategy, we meant to accomplish those two purposes. And we did—with something over. Perhaps the Flowers who sleep by the Somme to-day feel, on that account, that what they perished for was worth while. They kept the faith.

I had just dictated provisional Battalion Orders for the morrow; made the usual mistakes in the weekly Strength Return; and was wrestling with an incomprehensible document—highly prized by that section of the Round Games Department which sees to it that wherever the British soldier goes, whether singly or in battalions, his daily rations and weekly pay are diverted from their normal course to meet him—when there came a scuttering of hooves, and Master Roy Birnie, our esteemed sniping and intelligence officer, came flying round the corner on a borrowed horse (mine), as if all the Germans in Picardy were after him. However, this was merely Roy's exuberant way of coming home for his tea. He descended, hitched his steed to the farm-pump, and came striding into the kitchen with blood in his young eye. I dismissed the sergeant in quest of tea. Roy favoured me with a formal salute, then sat down, and began:

"Uncle Alan, I wonder why every battalion in the British Army (except ours) is entirely composed of damn fools!"

"I have heard that speculation so often upon the lips of members of other units of the British Army," I replied, "that I have given up trying to find the answer. Tell me your trouble."

Roy accepted the invitation at once.

"Well," he said, "I had a peach of an observation post up in the front line. It was an old derelict mill-wheel affair—one of those contraptions you see on the end wall of every farm-house in this country, with a poor brute of a mongrel dog inside, treadmilling away to work a churn, or play the pianola, or something. It lies out flat in front of C Company's sector, on top of a little rise, looking like nothing at all. You know it?"

"Yes," I said. "It has been there for months; it is one of the accepted features of the landscape by this time."

"That's right; the Boche has never suspected it. Well, I have been using it as an O. Pip for six weeks. There is a private covered sap leading out to it, and once you're inside you can stand in a pit, with your little circular peep-show all round you. Why, through one loophole I can see right away to Beaumont Hamel! Now, as you know, ten days ago we handed over to the Late and Dirties. This morning, when I went up into the line to see about taking over again to-morrow, what do you think I found—in my own special private O.P.?"

"I don't know," I said. "A hairpin?"

"Uncle Alan, for the Lord's sake don't play the fool! I'll tell you what I found; the whole floor of the post—my post, mind you—was covered with empty cartridge cases! Some Late-and-Dirty perisher had been in there with a rifle, firing volleys—no, salvoes—out of it! With an oily barrel, too, I'll bet! Of course the Boche has the place registered now; and next time there is any general unpleasantness brewing, up it will go! And I hope the Late-and-Dirty dog who gave it away will be inside, that's all!"

"It's rotten luck, I admit, boy. But in this case it doesn't particularly matter. In a day or two, we hope, your observation post will be far in rear of us. Perhaps some clerkly gentleman from the base will be making his nest therein."

Roy's face brightened suddenly.

"When do we push off?" he asked eagerly.

"That is a secret known only to the powers above. But I shouldn't be surprised if it were to-morrow, or the next day. The Colonel is away at a Brigade Conference now—the last, I dare say. He will probably call an officers' meeting when he comes back."

"Is Kilbride with him?" asked Roy quickly.

"Yes. Why?"

Roy smiled awkwardly.

"Well, you know!" he said. "Addressing you as Uncle Alan, and not as second-in-command, it's a little difficult sometimes for us Hoy Polloy to gather from the C.O.'s account of the proceedings what really is settled at these Brigade pow-wows. That is why we find it so useful to pump old Kilbride afterwards. The Colonel is such a fire-eater that he loathes all this chess-board warfare, as he calls it. His idea of fighting is to go over the parapet about a hundred yards ahead of his men, rush straight at the nearest German, and bite him to death. A pretty sound plan too, in many ways. The men would follow him anywhere."

"You are right, Roy—they would. And addressing you, not in your official capacity, but as my nephew, that's just what makes me anxious."

"You mean you are not sure where he will lead them?"

"I am not sure where he won't lead them! However, we must not criticise our superiors. Go and have your tea, you disrespectful young hound, and then come and help your uncle to wrestle with B.213. Hallo, here is the Colonel!"

There came a fresh sound of hooves; a neigh of welcome from the bored animal already tethered to the pump; and Eric Bethune and his adjutant rode into the yard.

Eric had been sent to us after Loos—our first commander, Douglas Ogilvy, having been killed in a bomb-fight near Hulluch. (I remember the day well. The Germans were furnished with bombs which exploded on impact; ours were of the Brock's Benefit type, and had to be lit with a match. Unfortunately, it was raining at the time.)

I need not say how joyfully the coming of Ogilvy's successor was greeted by the second-in-command. Eric came to us with a reputation. For nearly twelve months he had ruled an overcrowded and under-staffed depot at home, containing never less than two thousand turbulent ex-militiamen, and had licked into shape and self-respecting shape some of the toughest material that our country produces. After that, he had achieved his heart's desire and been sent out, to be second-in-command of our First Battalion. His first proceeding on arrival was to organise a successful attack upon a valuable sector of the line lost by another unit ten days previously. He led the attack in person, and was mentioned in Dispatches.

He came to us, inevitably, with a halo—or should it be nimbus?—and set to work to make us the smartest battalion on the Western Front. Physical fear appeared to be quite unknown to him. For my part, I confess quite frankly that I do not enjoy an intensive bombardment in the least. I really believe Eric did. So, I think, in soberer fashion, did his predecessor. But we were soon conscious of the change of regime in other directions. Where Eric differed from Douglas Ogilvy was in his passion for the spectacular side of soldiering—the pomp of ceremonial, the clockwork discipline, the perfectly wheeling line, the immaculate button in the midst of mud and blood. Eric was at last in a position to model a battalion on his own beliefs. The result had been an ecstasy of worship at the shrine of Spit and Polish.

"A dirty soldier," he was fond of telling his followers, "means a dirty rifle; and a dirty rifle means, in the long run, a dead soldier. Go and shave, and save your life!"

And there was no doubt that, within limits, he was right. That mysterious and impalpable entity, which we call morale, is apt to languish without the aid of soap and water, and a certain percentage of officially fostered bravura. The chief difficulty about this war was to prevent it from degenerating into a troglodytic game of stalemate. Everything that maintained morale and stimulated pride of Regiment was welcome.

But there are other things; and if these be lacking, look out for danger—especially under modern conditions. And it was this fear which possessed my slow-moving, uninspired mind as I took tea in that Picardy farm-house that hot and fateful afternoon with my superior officer and lifelong friend.

"Well," Eric began, filling his pipe, "we have had our last pow-wow, thank God! The Brigadier was in his element. He had the whole affair worked out in a little time-table—like a Jubilee Procession. Salute of twenty-one guns at dawn—procession to move off in an orderly manner at six a.m.—buffet luncheon at noon—carriages at five-forty-five, and everything!"

"Did old Kilbride take down a copy of the time-table?" I asked.

"I don't know. Probably he did: it's the sort of thing he would do. As for me, the whole business nearly made me weep. Why are we treated like children, or amateurs in charge of a Territorial Field Day? Don't these chuckle-headed Mandarins realise that we are fighting under conditions of actual warfare, when at any moment things may happen which no time-table can cover? Don't they understand that you cannot control the course of a battle by drawing up a niggling time-table any more than you can control the weather by buying a barometer? There are only two things that count in a soldier. The first is initiative in attack; the second is a complete understanding with his officers. Thank God, my men have both. Show them the objective; send them over the parapet; and they will see to the rest of the business without any time-table or book of the words whatever, thank you very much! Discipline! Discipline! Discipline! That's the only thing that matters!"

"Did you communicate your views to the meeting?" I asked.

"I took that liberty. In fact, I have been taking it for the last three weeks. I fancy I am getting slightly unpopular among the higher forms of animal life; but some one has to take the lead in these matters. Most of the men are too newly promoted—too recently gazetted, for that matter—to intrude their opinions. Good fellows, but amateurs—and diffident amateurs at that! Of course they regard everything the Brigadier says as gospel—and he did worry them so! He explained over and over again to each Battalion Commander the exact route by which he was to lead his men to their objective, and what he was to do when he got there. He was to dig in, and consolidate, and mop up, and re-establish communication—with Brigade Headquarters first and foremost, of course!—make arrangements for a ration dump—fancy thinking of food at such a moment—!"

"'An army fights on its stomach.' N. Bonaparte,' I observed.

"Trust you to remember yours, old man! Then he told us a lot more things, mainly about keeping touch with the Gunners, the Machine-Gunners, and the Signallers, and the R.E., and the Ammunition Column, and the Dry Canteen, and the Old Folks at Home—everybody, in fact, except the enemy. After that, a Gunner Brass-Hat stood up, and spoke his little piece. He rubbed in the time-table business; said we must adhere to its provisions very carefully; otherwise his guns would invariably be pooped off into the stern of the Brigade instead of the bows of the Boche. He didn't put it quite so baldly as that, but he waffled about the urgent necessity of observing the greatest exactitude, especially when the Gunners proceeded from bombardment to barrage. Then the Brigadier pronounced a sort of benediction, and asked, as a kind of after-thought, if there were any further points he could elucidate for us."

"That, no doubt, was where you put your little oar in!"

"It was. I asked him straight—and I could see half the fellows in the room agreed with me—if he had considered the effect of such paralysing exactitude upon morale? Our tradition—at least the tradition of my Regiment—was, and always had been, to seek out the enemy and destroy him. My men had not had a Staff College education; they did not understand or cotton on to this business of limited objectives, and working to a time-table. Their objective was Berlin, and their time-table was the limit of physical endurance; in other words, they were sufficiently disciplined to go until they dropped. Wasn't it rather a pity to cramp their style, and so on? I am afraid I rather riled the Brigadier; for the moment I forgot he had been through the Staff College himself."

"What did he say?"

"He mumbled something to the effect that my suggestions, if adopted, would involve a radical rearrangement of the plan of operations of an entire Army Corps; and that if my men didn't understand the tactical requirements of a modern battle it was my job to explain them to them. He said that—to me! Offensive old bounder! But of course, discipline is discipline, so I said no more. One cannot humiliate these old boys in the presence of long-eared subalterns; I remembered that."

"It's a pity you didn't remember it a bit sooner, old man!" It was a rash observation, but I was thoroughly alarmed.

Eric flushed a dusky red.

"Look here, Alan," he said, "I can't take criticism from any officer of mine, however old—"

"Sorry!" I replied. "But do be careful, Eric! You know what these people are. For God's sake, don't get sent home!"

Eric wheeled round upon me.

"What do you mean?" he snapped. "What gossip have you been listening to?"

I began to feel my own temper rising.

"I am not in the habit of listening to gossip," I said stiffly—"especially about my Commanding Officer. But the Brigade Major dropped me a pretty broad hint the other day, to the effect that your independent attitude was causing alarm and despondency among the Brass Hats; and—well, I think it's only fair to mention the fact to you."

But Eric was in no mood for sage counsel that day. He smelt battle; he was "up in the cloods."

"Pack of old women!" he exclaimed impatiently. "Wait till they see what we do in the show to-morrow, compared with the notebook wallahs!"

Then he glanced at my troubled face, and the old boyish smile came back—the smile which had held me captive for thirty years or more. He leaned over, and clapped me on the shoulder.

"Cheer up, Alan!" he said. "It was good of you to warn me; but I must use my own judgment in this matter—and I take full responsibility for doing so." He rose, and knocked out his pipe. "Now, I suppose I must have an officers' meeting, and let old Kilbride read to them the Brigadier's impression of how this picnic is to be conducted. They are a very earnest band. They will take it all down—they'd take down the multiplication table if you recited it to them—and read it to their N.C.O.'s; and the N.C.O.'s will misquote it to the men; and to-morrow I shall see my battalion, guide-book in hand, methodically advancing to victory, chanting elegant extracts from Orders, to encourage themselves and frighten the Germans! It's a mad war, this! Now, where is the orderly sergeant?"

"Sit down a minute," I said, "and listen to me." I was imperilling the foundations of an ancient friendship, but I could not leave matters like this. Eric dropped impatiently into his chair.

"Well, what about it?" he asked.

"Eric, old man," I began, "I was at Loos—the only show which we have put up in any way comparable with to-morrow's unpleasantness—and you were not; so I am going to improve the occasion. The great ones above us are quite rightly trying to fight this battle on the basis of the lessons taught us by Loos—and they were pretty considerable lessons. May I give you the experience of your own battalion?"

"Go ahead!" said Eric, resignedly filling his pipe again.

"We went off like a bull at a gate, and bundled the Boche out of his front and second lines in a few hours. I am only giving you our own experience, mind you. Other people weren't so well placed, and got practically wiped out crossing No Man's Land. On the other hand, a Division farther along on our right went slap through everything, up Hill Seventy and down the other side. (They say a platoon of Camerons penetrated right into Lens. Of course they never came out again.) Anyhow, by noon on the first day we were cock-a-hoop enough, right up in the air on perfectly open ground behind the Boche reserve line, without the foggiest notion where Brigade Headquarters was, where the next unit was—as a matter of fact, the people on our immediate left were farther ahead still, while the people on our right hadn't got up, and never did—where our artillery was, where our next meal was to come from, and what we were going to do now! We did all we could, which wasn't much. We tried to reverse the captured trenches, without tools. The Sappers turned up, as Sappers invariably do, just when they were wanted most, and performed marvels in the way of improvising defences; but we were still in a pretty precarious position. For the next twenty-four hours nothing in particular happened. Then the Boche, who had been regularly on the run, rallied, and came stealing back. He found our victorious line echeloned in the most ridiculous fashion all over the place, without any semblance of co-ordination, full of gaps you could march a battalion through. He made all the notes he wanted, called up his reserves, and delivered an extremely well thought-out counter-attack. Strung about as we were, he had us cold. We couldn't get up any ammunition or bombs. Special one-way communication trenches had been dug for the purpose, but they, of course, were jammed with traffic going the wrong way—stretcher-parties, prisoners, and details of every kind. (Fifty thousand wounded went back to Bethune in the first forty-eight hours.) We had nothing to hope for from the people farther back. Our gunners were there all right, ready and willing; but they didn't know where we were, and dare not fire for fear of hitting us. Whole Divisions of reinforcements were trying to get through, but the roads were packed with transport. In multiplying our artillery and machine guns we had overlooked the fact that for every gun you put into the line you add at least one limber or waggon to the general unwieldiness of the Divisional Ammunition Column. The country for miles behind the line was like Epsom Downs on Derby Day; nothing could get through at all. It was forty-eight hours before a really adequate scheme of reinforcement could be put into effect, and by that time we were practically back where we started. Up to a point, Loos was a well-conceived and splendidly executed operation; but after the first rush everything got out of gear. We had been told our final objective was Brussels! With a little luck and management we might have got Lille. As things turned out we got one pit-village. Luckily we got a lesson too; and to-morrow's show is going to be fought on that lesson. We are to advance to a fixed line and stay there, so as to eliminate gaps; we are to work to a time-table, to enable our gunners to fire with confidence; and we are to maintain communication from front to rear by a very carefully prepared scheme of one-way trenches and armoured telephone cables. Hence all the pow-wows and the little notebooks, Eric!"

But Eric was not convinced. He was in his most childish mood.

"It won't work! It won't work!" he reiterated. "It sounds all right at the pow-wows, and reads all right in the book of the words, but you can't perform these chess-board antics of peace-time under actual war conditions. There is only one way to win big battles, and that is by initiative, resting on perfect discipline—by having each separate unit disciplined and disciplined to such a pitch that its commander can handle a thousand rifles like a single pocket-pistol. I am vain enough to believe that my men are disciplined to that extent. Some of the other units are not; and not all the pow-wows and guide-books in the world will help them!"

He rose, and began to buckle on his equipment, whistling through his teeth. I knew that sound, and I dropped the subject.

"Is the kick-off hour fixed?" I asked.

"Yes. About three hours after dawn to-morrow; Kilbride has the details. We are going in from our present sector. I suppose the battalion are all ready to move?"

"Yes; they are parading now. They are timed to pass through Albert after dark, and take over from the Mid-Mudshires just before midnight."

"Good! They may as well know at once that they are going to attack, if they haven't guessed it already. I shall say a word to them before they move off. Are they all going together?"

"No. By companies, at twenty minutes interval."

"Well, let them parade together, anyhow. After I have spoken to them I shall go on with the leading company, and take Kilbride with me. I want you to stay here and clean up. Is another unit taking over this billet?"

"Yes—the Mid-Mudshires; we are simply changing places with them. I am expecting their advance-party at any moment."

"All right. When you have handed over, come along with the Orderly-room staff and join me. Have you much left to do here?"

I glanced round the littered table.

"A fair amount. You are taking Kilbride yourself?"

"Yes. Do you want help?"

"If you could spare me an odd subaltern—"

Eric glanced out of the window, to where the Headquarters Company were parading in the muddy road. His eye fell upon Master Roy, who, a little apart, was inspecting his own particular beloved command—a workmanlike squad of snipers. Eric swung round.

"If you want a really odd subaltern," he said, "take young Birnie! Appoint him Assistant Adjutant for the occasion, and tell him to send those pop-gun experts of his back to duty!"

I fairly gasped.

"You will break their hearts!" I said. "Can't you use them as scouts, or—"

Eric blazed right out this time.

"For God's sake, Laing, allow me to command my own battalion!" he cried. Then—characteristically—"I'm sorry, old boy! You mean well, I know; but really I must do things my own way. We don't require Bisley specialists in a hand-to-hand battle. As for Roy Birnie, a little less sniping and a little more intelligence won't do him any harm at all. Now I'm off to harangue the battalion. Sergeant, is my groom outside? I want my horse."

CHAPTER X

DISCIPLINE! DISCIPLINE! DISCIPLINE!

Exhortation before Action was a form of military ceremonial exactly to our commander's taste. I had heard him address his followers many a time. Nearly thirty years ago I had formed one of an audience of fourteen—shivering in shorts and jerseys in an east wind at the back of the school pavilion what time we were addressed by one Eric Bethune, about to lead us into a Final House Match which, owing to the size, speed and prestige of our opponents, could be regarded as little else than a forlorn hope. We won that Final House Match. I decided then, and have never departed from that belief, that no more gallant and inspiring leader of a forlorn hope than that same Eric could have been found among the manhood of our race. And here we were again, eight hundred strong this time, gathered in hollow square for the same purpose.

Eric spoke to us for perhaps five minutes, sitting his horse like a graven image, with the last rays of the setting sun glinting upon his burnished equipment. ("Protective dinginess" was anathema in Eric's battalion.) Around him, steel-helmeted, perfectly aligned, motionless, stood his men. It was characteristic of their commander that he did not preface his address with the order that they should stand at ease. All ranks remained rigidly at attention while he spoke.

I need not repeat his words. It is enough to say that, having heard them, I, for one, would willingly have followed the speaker anywhere he chose to lead me, without a thought (for all my fundamental convictions on the subject) of limited objectives, or artillery time-tables, or other mechanical hindrances to free fighting. He moved his men, too—representatives of the dourest and most undemonstrative element of the dourest and most undemonstrative nation in the world. I could see the effect of his words, in the glow of tanned faces, in the setting of square jaws, in the further stiffening of sturdy, rigid bodies. It was hard to decide which to be most proud of—the leader, or the men. I glowed inwardly as my eye ran down the motionless ranks. Great hearts! Great stuff! And, above all, representative stuff—truly representative, at last! They were not of the Regular Army type, nor the Territorial type, nor Kitchener's Army type. They were of the National Army—Britain in Arms—voluntary Arms—The Willing Horse, reinforced and multiplied to his most superlative degree.

Five minutes later A Company were streaming down the road in fours, Eric striding at their head with the company commander and adjutant. He had sent his horse back to the transport lines, and was "foot-slogging" exultantly with his men. I returned to the farm kitchen. I entered rather suddenly. Our newly-appointed assistant adjutant was sitting at the table, with his head buried in his arms. His back was to the door.

I tripped heavily upon the door-sill. Roy sat up hurriedly, and busied himself with the papers before him.

"Everything cleared up now?" I asked briskly, slipping off my heavy marching equipment.

"Yes, sir," replied a muffled voice—"very nearly."

"In that case," I continued, with great heartiness, "we can get away almost immediately. I am expecting our relief here in five minutes."

I babbled on a little longer, to give him time to recover. Presently he turned upon me, and spoke. His face was flushed—absurdly like his mother's when something had roused her chivalrous indignation.

"Uncle Alan, it's a rotten shame! I had a wonderful scheme all mapped out! It was in Orders, too! We had marked down all sorts of cushy spots for sniping Boche machine guns from. I had an aeroplane map of our sector, with Thiepval, and Beaumont Hamel, and everything! Now, my poor chaps are all sent back to their companies, where they will be treated like dirt; and—I am given a job as assistant office boy!"

It is impossible to furnish adequate comfort to a man who has been deprived unexpectedly of his first independent command. I merely patted Roy's shoulder, and said gruffly—

"Discipline, Discipline, Discipline, lad! That's the only thing that matters!"

Roy sat up at once. He was a soldier, through and through.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I am afraid I was mixing up Major Laing with Uncle Alan! That wasn't the game, was it? My error! It shan't occur again." He smiled resolutely. "I think everything is in order now. Shall I hand these files over to the Orderly-room sergeant?"

"Righto!" I said. "Was that a despatch rider I saw at the door just now?"

"Yes—from Brigade Headquarters. He left two messages."

"Did you give him a receipt for them?"

"No. He slung them in and bolted off. I expect Brigade Headquarters are on the move, and he didn't want to lose touch with them."

"Never mind! See what they are about."

Roy opened the first envelope, and extracted a field despatch-form. He glanced at it, and grinned.

"It's lucky we got this before going up into the line!" he observed; and read aloud:

The expression "Dud" must no longer be employed in Official Correspondence.

"It's a memo from Olympus," I explained: "They mean well, but their sense of proportion is not what it might be. And the next article?"

Roy did not reply. I looked up. His face was as white as chalk. He was breathing heavily through his nose, staring in a stupefied fashion at the flimsy pink slip in his hand.

"My God!" he muttered; "My God! It'll break his heart."

"What on earth's the matter, old man?" I leaned across the table. Roy thrust the despatch towards me.

"From Divisional Headquarters," he said, mechanically. "The Brigade Major has sent it on."

The message was quite brief:

Lt.-Col. E. F. B. Bethune, D.S.O., commanding Second Battalion, Royal Covenanters, will return home forthwith and report to War Office.

Pinned to the despatch was a hastily scrawled covering slip from the Brigade Major:

Passed to you, for immediate compliance, please.

The next thing that I remember was Roy's voice:

"They've done it on him! The dirty dogs! They're sending him home! Did you—know?"

"No! Yes! Well, I was half afraid of it. I knew the people higher up were getting a bit restive: in fact, I tried to warn him only this afternoon. But I never dreamed they would strike back at a moment like this. You are right, Roy—it will break his heart." (It was the second occasion upon which I had employed that phrase within the last hour.)

Another thought struck Roy.

"You are in command now!" he said.

"I suppose so; but not until this despatch is actually delivered to the Colonel."

We were silent again. We were both picturing the same scene, I fancy. Presently Roy said:

"If only it had been delayed in some way!"

I nodded.

"Even for a day!—"

"Even for an hour!—"

"Even for ten minutes! We should have been gone out of this place, and they would not have got us until the show was over!"

Our eyes met, then dropped hurriedly. We had read one another's thoughts. Discipline, Discipline, Discipline!

Roy picked up the two despatches, folded them, and put them mechanically into the pocket of his field despatch-book. Then he cleared his throat huskily. I found myself doing the same.

"Look here!—" we began both at once.

A cheery voice interrupted us:

"Good evening, sir. Is this Caterpillar Farm?"

We both jumped, like detected conspirators.

In the doorway stood a subaltern, saluting, with the totem of the Royal Mid-Mudshire Regiment stencilled upon his tin bowler.

"Come in," I said. "This is the place you want. I presume you have come to take over?"

About midnight, the Orderly-room Staff filed through the ghostly streets of Albert, to the music of innumerable big guns working up to their final spasm. At their head marched a silent major and a preoccupied assistant adjutant.

Next morning, just after dawn, the Second Royal Covenanters went raging to the opening attack of the greatest battle yet fought in the history of warfare. We were led into action by our Commanding Officer, Eric Bethune.

CHAPTER XI

ENFIN!

If those years brought unprecedented misery to the human family, they had their compensating moments—especially for those most deeply concerned. Lovers, for instance—true lovers. When two people really love one another, and are limited by inexorable circumstances to rare and brief periods of companionship, each one of which may be the very last—and each succeeding day of those four years saw some six hundred British soldiers of all ranks go back from Leave never to return—their love is lifted to heights, and breathes an atmosphere, of which ordinary workaday lovers can know nothing. Poor peace-time lovers—sitting holding hands in a conservatory, or spooning on a golf course—what do they know? Faced by a future all their own (and the enervating consciousness that there will probably be a good deal of it), what do they know? What do they know of the blind rapture of Six Days' Leave?

Roy's telegram preceded him by exactly one hour, so Marjorie had little time to get excited. She merely embraced Liss, changed her frock, embraced Liss again, changed her frock again, and dashed off to Victoria. After that her recollection of events went out of focus a little. She had watched the arrival of the Leave-train so often merely as a benevolent spectator, that sudden and personal participation in that function disarranged her perspectives.

She caught sight of Roy almost at once—singling out his glengarry from among the flat caps and steel helmets. He was politely resisting the importunity of an elderly gentleman in a grey uniform and a red brassard, bent on luring him to a free ride upon the Underground Railway. Next moment, Marjorie had slipped her arm through his. After that, neither of them remembered anything much until they found themselves sitting hand in hand in a taxi, gliding stealthily through the darkened streets of London, both feeling a little constrained and embarrassed. Re-united lovers, especially of our nation, do not always spark immediately on contact. We are a highly-insulated race.

"They keep this old place pretty dark," said Roy, peering out of the cab window. "Zeppelins, I suppose?"

"Yes. We had some last week."

"Have you ever seen one?"

"Rather!"

Roy laughed, constrainedly.

"It's funny you should have seen something in this war that I haven't," he said. "Where are we going?"

"To my flat."

Roy turned and surveyed Marjorie's profile in the dim light of the cab.

"I shall be able to see you properly then," he announced with satisfaction. "It's as dark as the inside of a cow here. Have you changed at all, I wonder?"

"You will find I am quite a big girl now," replied Marjorie, laughing constrainedly.

Roy laughed too, and his face came closer to hers. Her hair brushed his lips. Next moment their arms were about one another.

Five minutes later, they groped their way mechanically upstairs to Marjorie's landing, while a slightly incredulous taxi-driver, with one of the newly-invented pound notes in his oily palm, drove hurriedly away before somebody came out of the chloroform.

"You are thinner, dear, and older—much older," was Marjorie's verdict when they found themselves under the lamp by the sofa. "You look more like thirty than twenty. I expect things have been pretty awful sometimes, haven't they?"

Roy nodded. "Yes, sometimes," he said. "I'll tell you about it one day." Then, suddenly and boyishly: "Dearest, you look wonderful!"

It was no more than the truth. Marjorie had felt tired enough a couple of hours ago; but now her cheeks were pink, and her eyes glowed. Her hair had suddenly recovered its lustre. For the first time in six months she looked what she was—twenty. But she realised that the old Roy could never come back to her. Her smooth-cheeked schoolboy was gone, and in his place she had a man—thin as a lath, healthily bronzed, and curiously grave. The Western Front lost no time in making a man in those days—or breaking him.

They kissed again, with absolute lack of shyness this time. Suddenly a thought struck Marjorie.

"Good gracious!" she cried. "What time is it?"

"Seven o'clock. Why?"

"My dear—the theatre! I'd forgotten all about it. I am an honest working girl, and the curtain goes up at eight-thirty!"

"By gum!" said Roy, who of course knew all about "Too Many Girls." "Absent from parade when warned for duty, eh? That will never do. What about it? Can't you get a night off?"

"I might," said Marjorie doubtfully. "Most of the girls send a doctor's certificate. But I don't think it's the game. They overdo it so."

"Quite right!" said that young disciplinarian, Lieutenant Birnie. "But it's a bit rough, all the same."

A key rattled loudly and tactfully in the outer door, which then opened with mature deliberation, and Liss appeared.

"I hadn't meant to butt in," she explained, after introductions, "but I just want to say that I have seen Lancaster, and he says you can have the night off. I told him about you," she explained to Roy, "and he said you could have her this evening if you promised faithfully to send her back for to-morrow's show."

"I will bring her back myself," replied Roy, "and buy the whole front row to watch her from!"

"Righto! Good-bye, children! Enjoy yourselves!" said Liss, and vanished, like a diplomatic little wraith.

After that, Roy and Marjorie sat down to make plans.

"First of all," began Roy, "I must hop off to the club and order a bed and have a hot bath—a real hot bath! Sah vah song dearie, as we say at the Quai D'Orsay. My last one was in a little house somewhere behind Albert, in a sort of zinc coffin in front of the kitchen stove, with the family sitting tactfully in the scullery. But I am digressing: let us resume! After that, we will go and dine somewhere. By the way, I suppose there is still plenty of food to be had in these days?"

"There is a shortage of potatoes at present, I am sorry to say," replied Marjorie in her best canteen manner. "But—"

"We can worry along without potatoes," said Roy. "What I chiefly want is to dine off a table covered with a white cloth instead of a newspaper; and drink out of a glass instead of a tin cup. I think the Carlton will meet the case. Oh, my dear, my dear! I can't believe it all yet! Are you really here?" ...

At this rate of progress it was nine o'clock before they sat down to the feast, which was served to them by an obsequious neutral in a corner of the big restaurant. It was a luxurious dinner for war time, though bully beef and stewed tea would have served equally well. Reunited lovers are not, as a rule, fastidious.

They talked steadily now, unfolding reminiscence after reminiscence. Roy had most to tell; for Marjorie's adventures had been faithfully recorded in her daily letters, while Roy, as previously noted, had usually confined himself to breezy irrelevance.

"Uncle Alan is in command now," he said. "I suppose you heard that the Colonel had been knocked out?"

"Colonel Bethune? Yes, I saw it in the paper." To her own annoyance, Marjorie felt her colour rising. But Roy noticed nothing.

"Yes, he stopped a five-point-nine with his left arm on the second day of the Somme show, and went home without it. We were in a pretty tight place at the time, and it was a bit of a job getting him away. But I hear he's all right again now, though short of a fin. Have you seen him by any chance?"

"Not since April," said Marjorie. "He was in London then, on leave." She was feeling thoroughly self-conscious, and despised herself for it.

"They gave him a bar to his D.S.O.," continued Roy. "He deserved it too, for what he did."

"What did he do?" asked Marjorie jealously. She was a little critical of a system which gave a decoration to a man for getting wounded and coming home, and nothing to those who had to remain and carry on.

"We were right up in the air," explained Roy, "uncovered on both flanks. We did not know where we were; Brigade Headquarters didn't know where we were, so couldn't reinforce us; and the gunners didn't know where we were, so couldn't fire for fear of hitting us. The only person who really knew where we were was the Boche—a well-informed little fellow, the Boche!—and he gave it to us good and hard. But the Colonel was wonderful. We had no cover in particular, beyond a kneeling-trench which we had scooped out for ourselves. There was no room for any officer to pass up and down, so we all stayed where we found ourselves, as ordered, and controlled our fire as well as possible. But the Colonel came walking to us across the open from Battalion Headquarters—an old mine-crater about a hundred yards in rear of us—and strolled right along our whole front from end to end, with Boche snipers taking pot-shots at him all the time; looking as if he had just come out of his tailor's—he had gloves on!—stopping here and there to talk to the men, and telling them that no battalion of the Covenanters had ever been known to go back, and that reinforcements were coming up, and how pleased he was to see us so steady. (We weren't feeling a bit steady, really.) The trenches were full of wounded men whom we couldn't get away. He stopped and spoke to them all—by name!—and gave them cigarettes. The result was that when the Boche attacked, our fellows fought like tigers. It was after the attack got round our undefended flanks that the hard time began. Finally, their gunners got our range, and simply blew us out of the trench. Even then the C.O. wouldn't give in. He stood on the parapet, giving fire orders as cool as you please, and telling us how well we were doing. Finally he was hit. They carried him away on a blanket, insensible, and Uncle Alan took command. By this time we were surrounded on three sides—enfiladed, and everything. Uncle Alan passed word along that we were to fall back slowly to our proper place in the line."

"Your proper place?"

"Yes. I forgot to tell you about that. We had overrun our objective, it seemed. Everybody else in the brigade was snugly dug in about half a mile behind us, on a continuous line, except for a gap that we ought to have been filling. We got there at last, but it was a pretty awful walk. We got all our wounded away, though."

"Were there many?"

"A good lot. It was bad luck getting into that position at all. However, we got a tremendous pat on the back from the Divisional Commander afterwards. Apparently there had been some misunderstanding about orders. Now let us talk about something else."

And that was as much as was ever told of the story of how Eric Bethune's lofty contempt for the "book of the words" led a fine battalion into a skilfully baited death-trap.

After that they talked, as lovers will, of the present. They even spoke of the future—a subject upon which, in those days, few young people cared to hazard conjecture in cold blood. But to-night their blood ran hot and high. The world was theirs—for six days.

"To-morrow morning," continued Roy, with an air of immense authority, "I shall take you out and buy you an engagement ring. It is perfectly scandalous your going about with me in this way without one! (Still, I suppose you will have to wear it round your neck on a string, anyway!) After that, a little shopping! I suppose there will be no harm if I buy you some things—long gloves, and high-heel shoes, and silk stockings, and things like that? We'll throw in a nice sensible umbrella, as a chaperon! Then in the evening we will dine early, so as to give you plenty of time to get to your show."

Marjorie laid her slim fingers upon Roy's brown paw.

"Darling," she said firmly, "to-morrow morning I am going to take you to a railway station, and you are going to take the train to Scotland, to see your father!"

Roy's face fell ludicrously. Then the smile he had inherited from his mother came suddenly back. He was all contrition.

"Good Heavens! You had me there, dear. I own up! For the last twenty-four hours my noble parent has entirely escaped my memory. As soon as they told me that I could go on leave I simply grabbed my haversack, asked the Buzzers to send a wire, and then sprinted for the railhead. Poor old dad! Of course you're right. I haven't had a line from him for six weeks, by the way. I'll send a telegram to Baronrigg at once, and start to-morrow." Then he added anxiously:

"How long must I stay?"

Marjorie considered.

"Your father doesn't know anything about me, of course?" she said.

"No; nobody knows. It's our secret—ours, and no one else's!" The impulsive pair squeezed hands upon the secret, instantly revealing it to the obsequious neutral aforementioned. "Still, perhaps it would be as well if I told him, eh? Then he couldn't object to my coming back here pretty quick."

"Supposing he doesn't approve?" said Marjorie doubtfully. "He doesn't know me—nor my people, so far as I am aware. Or perhaps he does, which might be worse!"

"My old dad's a white man," said Roy stoutly. "He'd understand. He knows what it is for a fellow to have to go without. He once had to endure seeing his girl—my mother—engaged to another man for several months. He'll understand, all right!"

"I never knew that," said Marjorie. "Who was the other man?"

"Colonel Bethune. Of course he was only a subaltern then."

"Who?" Marjorie was fairly startled out of herself this time.

"Eric Bethune, our C.O. I thought that would surprise you! I never knew myself until a few months ago. Uncle Alan told me. The Colonel has always been rather heavily down on me—I never knew why—and one day when I was more than usually fed up with things in general, having just been informed by my commanding officer that I was not fit to hold the King's Commission, old Uncle Alan told me all about it. He explained that the Colonel didn't really think me a dud soldier; he was only peeved at not being my father. Fancy disliking a fellow for that! It's a queer world!"

Queer indeed! Marjorie, better informed than Roy, mused upon the diabolical trick of fate which had caused a man to be baulked of the only thing that really matters by two successive generations—first by the father, then by the son. For the first time she felt a genuine pang of pity for Eric Bethune. But it passed, in a flash. Eric was "heavily down on" Roy—her Roy! All her generous soul revolted at the pettiness of such a revenge.

"I often wondered," continued Roy, "why my mother broke it off. I don't believe Uncle Alan knew. Why was it, do you think?"

"I don't know," said Marjorie. But she did.

Five minutes later they arrived at the theatre where the musical comedy—or musical tragedy: you never know—of their choice was in progress. The vestibule was deserted, but Roy held open the swing door and ushered Marjorie into the darkened auditorium. A blast of hot air and a concerted feminine screech greeted them.

"The curtain's up," said Roy. "Come along! Our seats are in the back row, on the gangway. Rotten, but convenient!"

They slipped unostentatiously into their places. The company were massed upon the stage; the orchestra was in full cry; the young persons of the Chorus were in a state of unwonted animation. In the centre, a lady of ravishing beauty was melting into the arms of a distinguished-looking individual just over military age. Humourists supported either flank.

"This is going to be some show!" announced Roy, groping for Marjorie's hand, and surveying the chorus with all the appreciation of a Robinson Crusoe of six months' standing. "I shouldn't mind being Adjutant of that battalion! Not that any of them could walk down the same street with you! Hallo, hallo! What's all this? The interval! We must have come in late."

The curtain fell, and the audience, with one accord, rose to their feet and made for the doors. The band offered a hurried tribute to the Crown. Roy looked at his watch, and turned to Marjorie with a comical grimace.

"Eleven o'clock!" he announced. "We must have sat over dinner a bit longer than we thought. The show's over! Does it matter?"

"Nothing in the world matters—this week!" said Marjorie, taking his arm.

CHAPTER XII

TOM BIRNIE

I

Roy was duly despatched to Scotland the following morning.

"When does your leave end?" Marjorie asked, as they waited for the crowded train to start.

"Let me see—this is Friday. I go back by the leave-train next Wednesday afternoon—"

"Then travel back here on Sunday night," said Marjorie; "unless, of course, you can persuade your father to come back with you at once."

Roy pondered.

"I don't know," he said, "that it wouldn't be better to stick the week-end out at Baronrigg, and then come back alone, and have you all to myself."

Your true lover is an uncompromising egotist. Marjorie at once recognised the superiority of Roy's view.

"All right," she said. "There's the whistle! Get into the train, little man. Send me a telegram when you arrive."

She watched the long train crawl out of sight, and went back to the flat with a hungry heart. Six days! And she had to give him up for three of them! Still, it was the game.

But she had not to wait so long. Roy burst into the flat about noon the very next day—to the entire bouleversement of Liss, who was a dilatory dresser. Redirected by her (from behind the bathroom door) he sought Marjorie at the canteen, dragged her almost forcibly out to lunch, and communicated his news in a breath.

"Baronrigg is closed up tight! Has been for six weeks! Dad put all his affairs into order at the beginning of last month, and disappeared!"

"Disappeared? What do you mean?"

"Well, he simply shut up the house, gave what servants were left by the war a year's wages, walked to the station, and took the train for London. He hasn't been heard of since."

"But where has he gone?"

"Nobody knows!"

"Was he ill, or anything?"

"No. By all accounts he was as hard as nails and as fit as a fiddle."

"But didn't he leave any message?" asked Marjorie, bewildered.

"Yes," replied Roy, unbuttoning his tunic pocket, "he did. This letter, for me. I got it from old Gillespie at the Bank. I expect Dad knew I'd pop in there!"

"But doesn't it explain?" asked Marjorie.

"I don't know," said Roy calmly. "I haven't opened it yet."

"You have had it for a day and a night, and haven't opened it?"

"No. I wanted to wait until you and I could read it together."

"But weren't you dying of curiosity?"

"I was, rather. Still, I said to myself—"

Marjorie slipped her arm impulsively into his.

"Roy, dearest," she said, "I could never have done that!"

It was the first and last time Marjorie ever admitted to Roy that her sex was in any way inferior to his. They returned to the flat and read the letter together. That is to say, Roy read it aloud to Marjorie:

My dear Son,

You will remember that when the war broke out I was among those who thought it might have been avoided. I was also numbered among those who thought it would be a short war. I was wrong in both views.

My errors did not end there. I was not in favour of the raising of a great army. My opinion was that we should limit our efforts to the efficient policing of the seas, the supplying of munitions and equipment to France and Russia, and the enforcement of a great commercial blockade against the enemy. Neither honour nor interest, I said, demanded more of us. When our young men left all and followed the Colours without, as it seemed to me, pausing to reason why, I was inclined to regard them as hysterical Jingoes.

"I remember him saying that," observed Roy. "We had quite a battle before he would let me apply for a commission."

The war has now been in progress for two years. My first purpose in writing to you is to acknowledge to you that in your conception of national duty you, my son, were right and, I, your father, was wrong.

"It was decent of him to put in that," said Roy, looking up again.

I realise now that not only was the war inevitable, but that unless we make a superhuman effort as a nation we shall not win it. That realisation, unfortunately, is not universal in this district. Most of our people have done magnificently, and I shall always be proud to think that my only son was among the first and the youngest to volunteer.

"This," commented Roy, "is darned embarrassing to read aloud."

"Go on!" commanded Marjorie: "I love it!"

Indeed, the effort has been too great. Too high a tax has been levied on spontaneous loyalty. The general enthusiasm of the country has not been maintained. Consequently the best of our stock, both gentle and simple, is bearing the burden alone, at a cost which is ruining the future of the country.

That brings me to the second thing I have to say to you. In this very neighbourhood there are many blind optimists, many drifters, many irritating phrase-mongers, and a certain number of so-called Conscientious Objectors to warfare.

"He must have met Amos!" said Marjorie.

These latter are not dangerous: their very cowardice makes it easy to deal with them. Far more pernicious are the optimists, the drifters, and the phrase-mongers. Yesterday, at a meeting of the Territorial Association, I met a typical specimen—Mr. Sanders, of Braefoot. You may know him.

"I do," said Roy, grinning. "A celebrated captain of industry, now a county magnate—Nineteen-Thirteen vintage!"

This man said to me: "Sir Thomas, what I like about the situation is the way we are all doing our bit. I, for instance, have been working overtime on Government contracts for two years. I have bought nearly one hundred thousand pounds worth of War Bonds, and I have given seven nephews to the Army. Pretty good, eh?" By what authority, or with whose knowledge, he had presented other men's sons to the Army he did not explain.

Roy, I am ashamed of such people. But who am I to be ashamed of anyone but myself for not realising sooner—as soon as you—that in this sacred cause of ours there is only one thing that counts, and that is personal service? I am sound in wind and limb, and I have no helpless dependents. To-morrow I am going to London to join the Army. As an earnest of the fact that I do so in the spirit of humility and contrition, and not from any desire to pose or advertise, I shall communicate my intention to no one but yourself. I shall enlist as a private soldier, but in a unit where I am not likely to meet any one I know; and I pray God that he will enable me to serve my country as effectively as my own dear son.

Roy's voice shook a little. He had just made his father's acquaintance.

Should I not come back, you will find my affairs in perfect order, and Baronrigg waiting for you. Your trustees are Lord Eskerley and Alan Laing. Should neither of us come back—

"Don't read any more, dear," said Marjorie.

"All right!" replied Roy. "That's practically all now." He folded the letter and put it away in his tunic.

"I wish," he added thoughtfully—"I wish fathers and sons could get to know one another a bit better while they have the chance!" Then, "I wonder what regiment he enlisted in! I wonder if we shall ever meet out there! I'm sorry he didn't see you before he went. You'd have liked him, I think."

"I like him now," said Marjorie, with shining eyes. "I think he's splendid! And"—she broke into a happy laugh—"I like him particularly at this moment, because he has given you to me for four days more instead of two!"

"Let's go shopping!" said Roy, rising importantly.

II

After a gloriously deliberate start, the six days, as usual, gathered momentum. The last forty-eight hours whizzed by like an eighteen-pounder shell.

On Wednesday morning Roy, once more equipped in mud-stained khaki and bristling with portable property, appeared at the flat for breakfast at nine o'clock. Marjorie was ready for him. Liss joined the party a little later. For all her feather-head, she was no mean tactician. Having conscientiously effaced herself throughout the week, instinct now told her that her presence at the parting breakfast would be a good thing. So she uprooted herself from her beloved bed, and entered upon the task of distracting the lovers from the contemplation of the immediate future.

"I thought it was just time," she announced to Roy, "to bring myself to your notice a little. I am here, you know! I have been here most of the week, only I don't think you observed me very much."

"Oh, yes, I did," replied Roy gallantly. "Who could help it?"

"Well, you could—and did! I don't much like being in the same room with people who don't know I'm there. It's not safe. You walked straight through me the other afternoon, when you called to collect Marjorie. And the day before that, when I opened the door to you, you wiped your feet on me! I've had a wonderful week!"

With such blunt shafts of wit as these Miss Lyle ultimately provoked the lovers to a smile.

"That's better!" she said. "Now, next time you come home on leave, give us longer notice, and I will warn Leonard, or somebody, for duty. Then I shan't feel such an outsider."

Roy promised to do so.

"You will take care of Marjorie, won't you?" he added.

Miss Lyle favoured him with a gaze of withering wonder.

"You have been trying to take care of her yourself most of this week, haven't you?" she demanded.

"I have been doing my best," admitted Roy, cautiously.

"Very well, then! What happened? How did it end?"

"It ended, I think," confessed Roy, "in her taking care of me!"

Liss nodded her bobbed head triumphantly. "That's it," she said. "That's what always happens to people who try to take care of Marjie. She grabs them by the neck, puts them in her pocket, and keeps them there! That's what she'll do to me again, when you're gone. It's no good my pretending I ever do anything for her."

"Nonsense!" said Marjorie.

"But I'll tell you what," continued Liss: "I'll see she doesn't take care of anybody else while you're away—if I can. That's her trouble: she'd take care of the whole army, and navy, and munition people, and Red Cross, and everything, if she was let! But I'll watch her, and save the leavings for you!" She glanced at the clock, and rose. "Now, children, your Auntie Liss is going to leave you! Tactful—that's me! When is your train, General?"

"Two o'clock," said Roy. "I fancy we sail from Folkestone about six."

"Then," inquired Liss, playing a carefully hoarded ace of trumps, "why not go down to Folkestone now, both of you, by the morning train? That way you would have her until nearly six, instead of two. It's all right; don't thank me!" she concluded pathetically, as Marjorie, without a word, dived into the bedroom for her hat, and Roy began to struggle madly into his equipment.

III

They spent the bleak November afternoon on the Leas at Folkestone. At their feet lay the Straits of Dover, across whose waters British soldiers had come and gone for twenty-six months, and continued to come and go for twenty-five more, without the loss of a single soldier's life. But they could not see their feet that afternoon: their heads were in the clouds—private clouds, to which we will not presume to follow them.

As the autumn darkness fell, they took an early dinner in an almost empty hotel hard by the harbour, talking cheerfully of things that did not matter. Roy ordered champagne, and they drank a silent toast with a fleeting glance over the rims of their glasses.

"When does my train start?" asked Marjorie at length. "Don't forget that I have to be back for the evening performance."

Roy would inquire.

"Half-past five, from the Town station," he announced on returning. "That's some way from here. I have ordered a car, and if we start now I can go with you and see you off. That will give me just time to hop into the official leave-train coming down from London. It stops at Folkestone Town to turn round, and then backs right down to the boat."

Once more the parting was staved off. However, one cannot go on pilfering minutes eternally. This time it really was good-bye. It was half-past five; and they stood on the Town station platform.

"This is your train," said Roy, "standing here. Mine is due at the other platform now. There goes the signal! I must skip across the bridge. So—"

He drew Marjorie behind a friendly pile of luggage.

"It has been wonderful, Roy dear—wonderful!" For a moment she laid her head on Roy's breast. "But we did one stupid thing."

"What was that?"

"We ought to have got married!"

"I never thought of it," said Roy simply. "We were so happy, there didn't seem to be anything else."

"But we'll remember next time!" said Marjorie.

"I will give the matter my personal attention!" Roy assured her. "So-long, and take care of yourself!"

CHAPTER XIII

ALBERT CLEGG

In the early summer of Nineteen-Seventeen Uncle Fred paid a prolonged visit to Netherby—ostensibly to renew family ties, in reality for reasons not altogether unconnected with air-raids on London.

For the moment the fortunes of the war were back in the melting pot. The Battle of the Somme had bundled Brother Boche right back to the Siegfried Line, and enemy morale on the Western Front was low. The British army, fortified by twelve months of conscription, was blundering forward in characteristic fashion upon many fronts. The navy had swelled to a size undreamed of by any, and known only to few. Over the British coast alone nearly three thousand vessels of all sorts and conditions were keeping watch. The "Q" boat, too, with its crazy crew of immortals, was abroad upon the face of the waters, and the hunter had become the hunted.

But there was much to be set down upon the contra side. The spring offensive of the French army, after a brilliant beginning, had faltered, then halted. There had been recriminations, inquiries, resignations; and Pétain, the saviour of Verdun, had succeeded the gallant Nivelle. To keep the enemy from benefiting by the sudden relaxation of pressure on the Chemin des Dames the British army had flung itself into the premature Battle of Arras, and once more the casualty lists had shot up.

At home, the talk was mainly of Gothas—the Zeppelin was entirely démodé—and ration cards. The war was costing us six million pounds a day. Income tax at six shillings in the pound was teaching the man of moderate means the meaning of war; super-tax and excess profits tax were subjecting the capitalistic waistcoat to a not unsalutary reduction. Labour—or rather what was left, now that all that was best and soundest in Labour was away fighting—was going on strike periodically and with invariable success for more adequate recognition of its efforts to furnish the sinews of war to its wasteful and unproductive brothers in the trenches.

In Russia the Empire, battered from without and all corroded within, had collapsed upon itself; and an earnest but unpractical gentleman named Kerensky was rapidly undermining what was left of Russian staying-power, and, with the enthusiastic assistance of the German General Staff, paving the way for those great twin brethren, Lenin and Trotsky. One jaw of the vice which had been crushing the Hun to death was relaxed for good.

Still, there was no weakening on the Western Front. The Messines Ridge had recently "gone up," with a bang which had warmed the heart of every schoolboy in that schoolboy army, the British Expeditionary Force. The Salient of Ypres, that graveyard of British soldiers and German hopes, stood more inviolate than ever. Bagdad had been captured: Palestine was being freed. And in France, down in the Vosges, within the great quadrilateral formed by Chaumont, Toul, Vittel, and Ligny-en-Barrois, huge cantonments were being run up, and roads and railways laid down, by long-legged, slim-hipped, slow-speaking, workmanlike young men from a vast continent overseas—the forerunners of an army of indefinite millions which had pledged itself to come and redress the final balance at no very distant date.

But all this did not prevent London from being an extremely uncomfortable, not to say unsafe, place of residence for a high official of the noble army of Bomb-Dodgers. Finally, after a Gotha raid over London in broad daylight one bright morning in July, in which fifty-seven people were killed, Uncle Fred decided that it was no longer either just or prudent to risk a valuable life further, and went to Netherby, where he succeeded without any difficulty whatever in outstaying his welcome by a considerable margin.

Netherby itself was not over-cheerful, even though the master of the house was absent a good deal. Albert Clegg spent most of his time in those days on Tyneside, making himself liable to excess profits tax. Amos, his eldest son, who from early boyhood had cultivated the valuable habit of keeping one ear to the ground, was by this time in Glasgow, safely embedded in a convenient stronghold labelled "Civilian War Work of National Importance." Brother Joe was far away, as happy as a sandboy—and living like one—assisting General Allenby to construct a military railway from Beersheba to Dan. The younger members of the family were occupied in making unserviceable articles for the Red Cross, and complaining of the shortage of sugar. Mrs. Clegg faithfully attended committee meetings and gatherings where bandages were rolled and inside information imparted. Craigfoot lay remote from the tumult of war, though Edinburgh to the north, and Tynemouth to the south, had each been soundly bombed. Still, there was no lack of military atmosphere. Colonel Bethune himself—minus an arm, and with a bar to his D.S.O.—was back in command of the depot, an object of respectful worship to the entire community; and was always ready and willing to enlarge upon the situation, whether to an attentive mess or to a casually encountered ploughman. His august mother, Lady Christina, specialised upon the crimes of the Government, and had it on reliable authority that the counsels of the Cabinet were now entirely directed from Potsdam. Men on leave came and went, with tales of glory and gloom. Many of the girls were in London or in France; and there were countless letters to quote. Mrs. Clegg sat and listened to the babble of rumour and conjecture, shyly contributing here and there an excerpt from Palestine. Joe had never been home since his clandestine enlistment, but as the event had proved that conscription would have claimed him in any case, his father had decided to forgive him.

Marjorie's name was never mentioned at Netherby, by decree of the master of the house. With Mrs. Clegg—gentle, submissive, colourless—to yield in act was to yield in opinion. She possessed the faculty (recently enjoined, with indifferent success, upon an entire nation) of being "neutral even in thought." She accepted Marjorie's excommunication as she would have accepted her death, or any other form of irrevocability.

It was the last day of Uncle Fred's hegira. On the morrow he was to return, to face the dangers of Dulwich. Evening prayers had been concluded, and Albert Clegg was setting the markers in the Bible for to-morrow morning's exercises. Suddenly he looked up, and spoke:

"Fred!"

"Yes, Albert?"

"When you return to London I shall be obliged to you if you will make inquiries about my daughter."

Uncle Fred sat up—his back perfectly straight for the first time for many years. Mrs. Clegg's knitting dropped from her fingers. No one else was present. Only children remained at Netherby, and they had gone to bed.

"I have been thinking matters over," announced Albert, in measured tones. "I try to be a just man in all my dealings. It is one year to-day since the news came to me that my daughter had taken to—her present ways. By this time her punishment has possibly begun. It is not my intention to intervene between her and her Maker; but I have decided that there can be no harm in taking steps to ascertain what has become of her."

Mrs. Clegg caught her breath. Uncle Fred, utterly dazed, wagged his beard weakly.

"That's very handsome of you, Albert," he said respectfully.

"Handsomeness has nothing to do with it!" snapped Albert, among whose rare and austere amusements none was more prized than that of keeping his younger brother in his place. "I am simply doing what I consider to be right and just. Now, when you return to London I want you to institute inquiries as to where my daughter is to be found. If you are successful, I wish you to visit her. I should not like to think that she was actually destitute. Of course, she can never return here, but I can see that she is provided for."

There was silence. Then Uncle Fred inquired, after the fashion of all feeble folk:

"How should I set about finding her? London is a big place. I suppose the police—"

"I will not have the police brought into the matter until absolutely necessary," thundered Albert. "You must search the theatres!"

It was a magnificent suggestion, but too daring for Albert's audience—certainly for Uncle Fred.

"I have never been inside a theatre in my life," he objected.

"Neither have I. But you need not go inside. Enquire at the door whether my daughter is employed there. Demand to see the manager!"

"Do you think he will tell me?"

"Threaten him with the law if he won't. These fellows are usually under police observation, in any case. They won't dare to fight."

"Perhaps a word with the stage-door keeper—" suggested Mrs. Clegg timidly.

"There's no need for Fred to get mixed up with the dissolute crowd that hangs round stage-doors," was the stern reply. "He'll go in by the front!"

Uncle Fred, flattered on the whole at being still regarded as a potential profligate, hastened to associate himself with this sentiment. But at heart he felt a little ashamed. There were elements of the dare-devil about Uncle Fred. Still, he reflected, he could take his own line of action when he got back to London. He propounded another conundrum.

"Supposing she isn't in one of the theatres—what then? Would it be any good trying the churches? She may be attending some place of worship regularly."

"If she is, it is bound to be Church of England; and I don't intend to be beholden to that body for any help!" replied Albert firmly. "You might try the Salvation Army. Their rescue work brings them in contact with every walk of life—the West End restaurants and clubs, and haunts of that kind."

The implied spectacle of Uncle Fred, assisted by a contingent of Hallelujah Lasses, raiding the Athenæum or The Popular Café, for a lost niece was not without its humour; but the paths of humour and righteousness converge too seldom, to their mutual detriment.

"When you find her," concluded Albert, "ascertain quietly what her circumstances are, and report to me. I will then decide what it is best for me to do."

Uncle Fred, duly uplifted, wagged his head with increased solemnity.

"I must say, Albert," he announced, "even though it angers you, that you are acting in a very generous manner."

"Yes, father," added Mrs. Clegg wistfully.

In a watery way, her heart yearned over her daughter.

"Nothing of the kind!" said Clegg. "I am merely acting as my conscience directs me. These are demoralising times for the best of us"—perhaps Albert's excess profits were pricking him—"and we must make certain allowances. Of course, having acted the way she has, after her Christian upbringing, she can never expect forgiveness. But—well, I shall wait until I hear from you, Fred."

CHAPTER XIV

TWO SPARROWS

I

Marjorie was one of those who were "able to proceed to their own homes after receiving surgical aid." Others were not so fortunate. The Mouldy Old Copper—badly wounded by splinters of glass, and excoriating the entire Teutonic race with a failing tongue but unabated spirit—was borne off to St. Thomas's Hospital, followed by others. The canteen had been moderately full at the time, and more than one soldier home on leave had had his leave indefinitely prolonged by the visitation. Providentially, no one was killed; the bomb had fallen just too far down the street.

The raid took place on a Sunday evening, during Marjorie's one period of night duty in the week. (In this way, she gave herself one clear weekday for fresh air and exercise.) They kept her at the hospital until she had breakfasted, then dispatched her homeward, with instructions to return daily as an out-patient until further notice.

She walked across Westminster Bridge in the morning sunshine, feeling badly shaken, but not a little proud. Few of us ever outgrow a childish thrill at finding our arm in a sling. Not only was Marjorie's arm in a sling, but her right shoulder was bandaged. ("Just missed your carotid artery, my dear," had been the comment of the elderly house surgeon.) She felt gloriously conspicuous. A 'bus-load of convalescent soldiers in hospital blue recognised her as one of the elect, and inquired affectionately whether she had been out in a trench raid. She waved her sound arm in cordial acknowledgment of the pleasantry. Roy would be interested to hear about this. On second thoughts, no. Roy never told her when he had had an escape; she must maintain Roy's standard of reticence.

She walked jauntily into the flat, and sat down, a little suddenly, upon the feet of Miss Elizabeth Lyle, who, as already noted, was usually insensible until about eleven a.m. Liss rolled over with a resigned sigh, poked her nez retroussé out from under the sheet, and remarked meekly:

"All right! Give me just five minutes more, and I promise—My goodness gracious, Marjie, what have you been doing to yourself?"

Marjorie described the raid. She told the tale as lightly as she could, with humorous touches here and there; for she had seen human blood flow freely, and was feverishly conscious of a desire to get the picture out of her mind. Gradually the narrative became more frivolous, the touches more and more humorous. Finally, the narratress grew so amused with the recollection of her own experiences that she threw her head back and laughed loud and long.

Liss slipped hurriedly out of bed, put both arms round her uproarious friend, and laid her by main force in the place which she had just vacated.

"You stay there, dearie," she said. "They ought never to have let you out."

"The hospital was so full!" Marjorie was shivering all over now, and battling with an inclination to tears. "They said that they were very sorry—very sorry—very sorry indeed—but—"

"That's all right!" said little Liss soothingly, covering her up, and patting her undamaged arm. "I'll make you a good, strong cup of tea, and then you will have a nice sleep, and you'll wake up as right as ninepence! I'll slip round to the theatre and tell them they needn't expect to see you again for a week or two. The show is going to close soon, anyhow."

"I don't care if it does!" murmured Marjorie, her head on Liss's pillow. She did not even trouble to cross the room to her own bed. "I have learnt one thing in the last year, and that is that I am not cut out for the stage. It bores me. I was meant to stay at home, and look after little people like you—and Roy! That's what I—"

She settled down like a tired child, and fell sound asleep. Liss snatched some apparel from a chair, padded out of the room in her bare feet, and closed a door gently for about the first time in her life.