THE WILLING HORSE (continued 4)

II

Marjorie woke up in the afternoon—herself again, but stiff and bruised. She rose, and entered the sitting-room. Liss was lying on the sofa, reading the Daily Mirror and smoking a cigarette. She sprang up on seeing Marjorie, and flew to her, stopping just in time.

"Sorry, duckie!" she said. "I must remember that arm of yours. Are you feeling all right again?"

"Splendid!" said Marjorie. "What time is it?"

"About four."

"Let us have some tea then, and I'll go round to the hospital and get my arm dressed again. Hallo, it's raining!"

"Yes; it has been pouring ever since eleven o'clock this morning," said Liss; and coughed.

Marjorie turned upon her sharply. Liss was one of those persons to whom coughing is a forbidden luxury.

"Liss," she cried, "you're soaking! Every rag you have on is sticking to you! What's the matter?" She began to fumble at the back of the child's blouse. "Here, undress yourself! I have only one hand."

"I got a bit wet when I went out to the theatre," said Liss airily.

"But why on earth didn't you—" Marjorie glanced towards the bedroom door, and stopped abruptly. She understood. "I see," she said, "you didn't want—? Was that it? How long have you been like this?"

"Oh, not long," Liss assured her; and coughed again.

III

Marjorie, returning from her alternative role of out-patient to resume that of head nurse, walked into the flat, and sat down heavily on Liss.

"How are you feeling this morning, Baby?" she inquired.

"Top-hole!" replied the invalid.

Three weeks had passed. Liss was now convalescent; but congestion of the lungs is not a malady to be taken lightly, especially by little wraiths with weak chests. Marjorie herself had nearly shaken off the shock-effect of the raid. Her arm was still lightly bandaged.

"It's a lovely day," she said. "I will take you for a bus ride this afternoon, if you're good. Meanwhile, I want to have a pow-wow with you." Marjorie had picked up this expression from Roy, and was rather proud of it.

"What about?"

"Well—have you any money?"

"I thought there'd be a catch about it," said Liss, reaching out to the little table beside her bed for the bag in which the young woman of to-day is reputed to keep everything but the kitchen stove. "Let me see!" she said. She laid out on the counterpane a cigarette-case bearing a regimental crest, a match-case bearing another, entirely different, a long cigarette-holder, a powder-puff box, a lip-stick, and a diminutive handkerchief. "Now we're getting down to business!" she announced encouragingly. "Here's a shilling—a threepenny bit—and four pennies. Wait a minute! Here's a crumpled up thing here that might be a Bradbury. No, it's a note from Reggie. I suppose I oughtn't to keep that now!"

Liss tore up the billet-doux with a sentimental sigh. It may be noted in passing that her engagement to Master Leonard had terminated some months previously by mutual and violent consent. A subsequent contract of eternal fidelity to a young gentleman in the Royal Flying Corps—one Reginald Bensham—had recently been dissolved, by unanimous vote. At present Miss Lyle's affections were disengaged.

"One and sevenpence!" she announced. "You can search me for more!"

"That's rather a blow," said Marjorie.

"Are we running short?" asked Liss. "Of course we must be, both having been out of a job for three weeks. But I thought—"

"So did I," replied Marjorie. "I thought we had a nest-egg in the bank at my home in Scotland. I haven't touched it for a year, because I wanted it to accumulate for a rainy day. On Monday I came to the conclusion that our present days were rainy enough—there's the doctor's bill, for one thing—so I wrote to Mr. Gillespie, the manager, and asked what my balance was. I got his answer this morning."

"I hate to ask—but what is the balance?"

Marjorie smiled dismally.

"That's just it! There isn't any balance at all! Just a few odd shillings. My father seems to have cut off my allowance about a year ago. I wonder why? At least, if he was going to do it at all I wonder why he didn't do it in the very beginning. However, we won't worry about that. The situation is, that you have one and sevenpence, and I have about two pounds ten."

"Two pounds ten, and one and sevenpence—that's about two pounds fifteen," announced Liss, after a brief calculation. "We can live for weeks on that. Before it's gone we shall be back in a job again."

"I shan't let you take a job again for a long time, my dear," said Marjorie. "They won't have much use for me, either; I can't lift my arm above my shoulder at present. How could I hold up the Torch of Liberty in the last act?"

"We'll rub along," announced the small optimist in the bed. "If the worst came to the worst, I could always get engaged again. There's a perfectly sweet boy in the Tanks—"

But Marjorie's hand was over Liss's mouth. "Baby, remember you don't get engaged again without my permission!"

"All right!" mumbled Liss. "Have it your own way! But what about your Roy? Can't you raise a small subscription out of him? That would be quite O.K., wouldn't it? You're going to marry—" Suddenly Liss sat up in bed, for she had caught sight of Marjorie's face. "Why, what's the matter, dear?" she asked.

"I haven't heard a word from him for five weeks," said Marjorie in a low voice. "I'm most awfully unhappy, Liss."

Liss forgot all about herself at once, and put both arms round her protector.

"Think what a lot of letters must be lying waiting for you somewhere," she said. "You'll get a whole bunch one morning. Now I'm going to get up, and we'll go on that bus ride."

They lunched frugally at an A.B.C. shop, and having boarded a Number Nine bus sped westward along Piccadilly. A communicative man with a broken nose, wearing the silver badge of a discharged soldier, leaned over their shoulders from the seat behind them.

"Sir Dougliss 'as done it again, ladies!" he announced importantly, thrusting an evening paper before them. "Look! Fifteen-mile front—twelve villages—five thousand prisoners! That's the stuff to give 'em!"

The girls read the report eagerly. It described the opening British attack of the Third Battle of Ypres. (In the first two, the attack had come from the other side.) Woods and villages, long familiar in daily bulletins as German strongholds, were at last in British hands—Hollebeke, Sanctuary Wood, Saint Julien, Hooge—and the advance was still continuing. Marjorie's heart quickened—then faltered. Great victories mean big casualties—and she did not even know where Roy was. When last heard of she had gathered that he was in a rest-area somewhere behind Amiens. But that had been five weeks ago.

"Do you know that district?" Liss was asking.

"Know it? I should think I did, miss—like the back of me 'and! I copped a sweet one there in 'fifteen—near Cambray."

"But Cambrai is not in the Salient," observed Marjorie.

The communicative man conceded the point immediately.

"Neither it is, miss—not in that Salient. My error! They rushed us up and down that Western Front so fast, no wonder a feller gets mixed! I was hit in both places, though. Well, 'ere we are in good old 'Ammersmiff. This is where I 'ops off. Good-day, ladies! Keep the paper, and welcome."

"It's big news, isn't it?" said Liss, continuing to skim through the heavily leaded paragraph.

"I wonder why that man thought Cambrai was in the Salient," remarked Marjorie.

"Swank, I expect," said Liss. "Probably he hasn't been out at all—or wounded!"

"But he was wearing a silver badge," objected Marjorie, to whom all military geese were swans.

"Perhaps he pinched it," suggested Miss Lyle, who harboured few illusions concerning the male sex.

Her theory received entire corroboration a moment later. On folding up the newspaper before descending they discovered that Marjorie's vanity-bag, which was lying on the seat between them, had been neatly slit open and its entire contents extracted.

The pair turned and regarded one another silently. Liss was the first to speak.

"That brings us down to one and sevenpence," she remarked. "No wonder he didn't know where Cambrai was!"

IV

"Luncheon is served," announced Liss.

"What is there?" asked Marjorie.

"The same as breakfast, with Willie and John thrown in. Also the rest of the day before yesterday's loaf. Pull up your chair, dear."

As breakfast had consisted of nothing at all, the prodigality of this menu can be readily gauged. Willie and John, by the way, were the last two sardines in the tin.

"You take Willie," said Liss. "Here's your half of the bread. Oh my, but I'm hungry! Good-bye, John dear! Marjorie, what are we going to do next?"

Marjorie bent her brows judicially.

"Let me see," she said. "I've tried the theatre, and they don't begin rehearsing the new piece for a fortnight. It was no use trying the canteen, because it isn't there any more—at least, nothing worth considering. And as it happens, I don't know anyone else in any other canteen."

"We haven't got an account at any shop," continued Liss, "because we've always been to the cheap cash places. I don't know a living soul in London, except my family; and if I go back to Finchley I know I'll jolly well have to stay there for the duration."

"And I," supplemented Marjorie, "know no one except Uncle Fred, in Dulwich. And I'd rather die than ask him for help!"

"No one at all?" exclaimed Liss. "Do you and I mean to sit here and tell each other that we know no one in London, except the people at the theatre, and the people at your canteen, and one or two dud relations? Why not call on your old Lord Eskerley?"

Marjorie hesitated.

"I don't think I can," she said. "I have no particular claim—"

"No claim? Didn't you drive his silly old car in all weathers for nearly a year? Didn't he tell you to come back and see him whenever you had time? It's no use being modest when you're starving. If you don't go and see him, I shall."

"Then I may as well tell you, dear," announced Marjorie, "that I have been already."

"Why didn't you say so before?"

"I didn't want to disappoint you."

"Why? Were you chucked out?"

"No. He's away in Paris, on an indefinite mission. The butler was very nice about it, but he had no information as to when his lordship would be back. I hadn't been entirely forgotten, though. There was a message for me. It had been lying there for weeks."

"What did it say?"

"It was just a scribbled note in an envelope with my motor licence, which I had left behind in the garage." Marjorie crossed the room to her little bureau. "Here it is! It says:

My dear late lamented Habakkuk,—I enclose your licence, which you have inadvertently left on my premises. No doubt you will need it again some day.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely—

There's a postscript," she added:

Apropos of motor licences, let me offer you a piece of advice. Always keep an adequate sum—say a pound or so—folded up and tucked away between the covers of the licence itself. This expedient, when you get held up in a police-trap, and the minion of the law examines your credentials, may obviate a public appearance before the local Beaks. Verb, sap.! Very useful. Don't say I told you.

Marjorie laid down this characteristic effusion, and laughed.

"I don't think we are likely to tie up any capital in that way at present!" she said, finishing the last crumb of her bread. "We are down to fourpence now. We had better keep that for to-morrow, and go without supper to-night. No, we'll spend threepence on biscuits, and have a biscuit apiece at bed-time!"

"By golly, we do go it, don't we!" Liss looked round the room hungrily. "Isn't there anything left that we can pop?"

"Nothing, I'm afraid. My jewellery is all at Netherby. I have my engagement-ring, of course—"

"That stays!" announced Liss firmly. "It was lucky," she went on with more cheerfulness, "that my little Leonard did not want his back! Not that we got much for it; I always said he bought it at a stationer's! Now, if it had only been the one Reggie gave me, that would have been a different story; his was a beauty. But the little beast practically grabbed it back from me. Marjie, I really think I'd better get engaged again. I could wire Toby, at—"

"You will do no such thing!" said Marjorie. "Besides, you can't send a wire for fourpence."

"I suppose," continued Liss (whose motto in life was "Anything Once!") "it wouldn't do to go and sit about in a restaurant somewhere, and get taken out to dinner by an Australian, or somebody? All right, I was only joking! Well, we must just hang on till Saturday; then there will be lots of our nice boy friends in town for the week-end, and we can make up for lost time. Meanwhile, let's go round and see if we can't get a job directing envelopes, or something. Carry on, partner!"

V

Towards evening our two hungry sparrows forgathered again, footsore and faint, but still smiling. Liss, who ought by rights to have been in bed consuming chicken-broth, was as white as wax.

"What luck?" she enquired.

"Nothing doing!" sighed Marjorie. "They will take me on at an office in Holborn as soon as my arm is well enough to write, but they wouldn't give me an advance of pay. They just told me to report at nine o'clock on Monday."

"And to-day's Thursday! Thank them for nothing!"

"Did you get anything?" asked Marjorie.

"No—except that I went round to the theatre again, and they are putting on the new show a little sooner. There's a call for rehearsal on Saturday. That doesn't mean any salary for a long while, but I ought to be able to borrow a shilling or two from the girls. Not that it will be easy: they all need the money themselves these days, poor things! I'm cold. Let's have our biscuit and go to bed."

"I wonder what time it is?" said Marjorie, getting up from her chair.

"About eight, I should say." (Watches had been hypothecated long since.) "It's a bit early."

"Qui dort, dine," quoted Marjorie.

"What does that mean?"

"It's what Lord Eskerley used to say when he'd been to the House of Lords. Let's go to bed; I'm comfortably tired. London's a big place to get about in—when one hasn't a bus fare!"

They shared Marjorie's bed that night, for misery loves company.

"I say," suggested Liss suddenly, "couldn't we go round and get a meal from the Red Cross, or somebody?"

Marjorie, who was just dropping off to sleep, replied with great firmness:

"The Red Cross can only assist people who have been wounded in action. If they go beyond that, the Geneva Convention allows them to be fired on; and then Roy might—No, we can't ask the Red Cross—unless we get hit in another air-raid!" she added hopefully.

Having no more suggestions to offer, Liss dropped off to sleep in her favourite attitude—with her head under the pillow. Marjorie lay awake for a long time, pondering many things in her heart—speculating mainly as to whether she could last out until Baby's flock of plutocratic second lieutenants came to town on Saturday. She decided immediately that she could, adding a mental rider condemning persons who, like herself, worried about their own personal comforts when there was a war on. She also wondered, again and again, what had become of Roy. She wondered whether he were hungry too. Presumably not. He had assured her that the British Army on the Western Front were grossly overfed—in fact, the inevitability with which the Army Service Corps got the rations up and through bordered on the uncanny. No, she need not worry about Roy's diet. His safety was another matter. Five weeks! She dropped into a troubled sleep.

CHAPTER XV

THE EXPLORER

Meanwhile, in a crowded street just off the Strand, in the fading light of a July evening, an elderly gentleman with a goat's beard, spectacles on nose, was diligently examining the framed photographs exhibited outside a very popular theatre. His attention was particularly directed to a large chorus group—an ensemble of attractive young women in costumes attuned to the economical spirit of wartime.

Aware of a sudden interference with the not too abundant supply of light, the elderly investigator turned round, a little guiltily, to find that he was being assisted in his investigations by three hard-breathing members of His Majesty's Forces—an English Sapper, a Highlander, and a Canadian of enormous bulk.

"And very nice, too!" observed the Sapper. "But Grandpa, not at your time of life, you didn't ought to—reelly! 'Op it—there's a good boy!"

"Awa' hame!" added the Scot severely—"or I'll tell on ye tae Grandmaw!"

Bitterly ashamed at having his motives thus misconstrued, Uncle Fred hurried away. His course now took him westward along the Strand, which was packed from end to end with seekers after diversion—mostly soldiers and their adherents. He plodded steadily through the press, with the air of a man who has a definite goal before him. This was the second week of his search for Marjorie, but he had considerably modified the plan of action laid down for him by his elder brother. His attempts to call upon the theatrical managers of London, seriatim, for the purpose of compelling them to disgorge his niece, had resulted in a sequence of humiliating reverses at the hands of stunted but precocious children in the outer office. Uncle Fred had now evolved a plan of his own. He had observed that theatres were accustomed to stimulate the appetites of their patrons by displaying samples of their wares—in the form of large framed photographs—outside the entrance to the theatre. Good! He would resolve himself into an investigating committee of one, visit each theatre in turn, and examine photographs until he had located Marjorie. After that, the stronghold itself must be penetrated. A somewhat hazardous enterprise, he decided, but not without its romantic side. As already noted, there was the making of a man-about-town in Uncle Fred.

His self-imposed quest had been in progress for several evenings, and, as yet, had borne no fruit. Uncle Fred was not familiar with the life of the West End—his knowledge of social life in London, like that of too many Members of Parliament, was limited to the tea-room of the House of Commons—and he had wasted a good deal of time hunting for photographs outside establishments where chorus girls are not usually to be found—Maskelyne and Cook's, for instance, and the Polytechnic. Also, it required expert knowledge to distinguish the humble home of the Drama from the palace of the Movie Queen. But he was learning rapidly. Assisted by the advertisements in the daily press and a District Railway map of London, he had now charted out the whole of theatre-land, and had very nearly completed a most methodical survey thereof. He knew the name of every revue and musical comedy in London, and could have given points, in his familiarity with the features of professional beauty, to the average Flying Corps subaltern.

He crossed Trafalgar Square, and headed for the Shaftesbury Avenue district. A hurried reference to the map, in a quiet corner behind the National Gallery, confirmed him in his bearings. Presently he found himself before another theatre. It was nearly nine o'clock; but, thanks to the Summer Time Act, it was still daylight. The name of the current attraction of the house, as stated on the bill-boards outside, was Too Many Girls. Diagonally across each bill-board was pasted a printed slip which said, a little ambiguously, "Last Week."

"That's a pity," mused Uncle Fred. "But I can slip inside and find out what they are doing this week and next. There's some sort of entertainment going on: I can hear it."

Thrusting his beard well forward, Uncle Fred marched boldly into the vestibule of the theatre. The framed photographs had been taken in for the night, and were ranged round the wall on easels. Uncle Fred set his spectacles in position, and began his usual methodical tour of inspection, at his regulation range of six inches.

A stout lady, confined in a gilded cage in one of the walls, engaged in counting change, suspended operations to watch him. She caught the eye of the commissionnaire who stood at the swing-door leading to the stalls, and coughed delicately. Certainly Uncle Fred, in his semi-ecclesiastical frock-coat and Heath Robinson tall hat, crouching astride his umbrella in a strained endeavour to scrutinise the very lowest row in a large photographic group of chorus girls, fairly invited comment.

"Boys will be boys!" observed the commissionnaire, to no one in particular; and the siren in the cage giggled.

Suddenly Uncle Fred came to a dead point opposite the very last photograph in the last row. Feverishly reinforcing his spectacles with a pair of eye-glasses, he made a confirmatory examination, and then rose to an upright position—looking as Stanley may have looked when he found Livingstone. Then, for the first time, he became aware that he was not alone.

"Naughty, naughty!" said a wheezy feminine voice.

"Haw, haw, haw!" roared the commissionnaire.

"I'm ashamed of you, little brighteyes!" declared the accusing angel in the cage.

"Outside!" added the commissionnaire, recalled to a sense of duty by the appearance at the swing-door of an authoritative-looking person in a dinner jacket.

Uncle Fred, shamefully misunderstood and deeply wounded, hurried out. In the street he hesitated.

"Those people might have given me some useful information," he reflected. "But I won't go back now, to be insulted! I think, after all, it would be best to see the caretaker at the stage door. I suppose that will be somewhere at the back."

A voyage of circumnavigation brought him to the dingy portal which early training and settled conviction had always represented to him as giving direct access to the Infernal Regions. With a guilty thrill he crossed the threshold, and found himself confronted by an unshaven man slumbering in a glass box. Uncle Fred coughed nervously. The man opened his eyes, and pushed open a glass shutter.

"Well?" he enquired.

"I want to ask a favour," began Uncle Fred. But the man cut him short.

"What is it? Temperance, or Christian Science? You can't put up no notices on our call-board. Management don't allow it."

"I have reason to believe," pursued Uncle Fred, with feeble dignity, "that a young woman is employed here—"

"We employ thirty-six of 'em," said the stage-door man.

"I have just seen her likeness—in a group—round there"—explained Uncle Fred, waving his umbrella vaguely towards the front of the house.

"It very often starts that way," remarked the stage-door man. "But why not pay for a seat, like a little gentleman, and go in front and see the gel?"

"She's my niece," explained Uncle Fred.

"They always are," said the stage-door man. "Or else cousins! Good night, Tirpitz!"

He shut the little glass shutter in the investigator's face, and recomposed his features to slumber. But Uncle Fred, though not a dashing person, possessed some elements of the dogged persistence of the Clegg family. He rapped on the window-pane. The stage-door man opened it again.

"Now, you run away!" he said. "'Op it! Sling yer 'ook, or I'll set the cat on you!"

"Is my niece here to-night?" asked Uncle Fred, employing the handle of his umbrella as a lever of the third order. "I am very anxious to have a few words with her, on a domestic matter. I see a notice outside, saying that the present entertainment concluded last week. But it has occurred to me that it is still possible—"

The stage-door man slid from his stool, came out of his den, and laid a heavy hand, not unkindly, on the orator's shoulder.

"What you want to do, ole friend," he said, "is to 'ire the Albert 'All, and make a night of it! That'll get it out of your system nicely. Good-bye!" He gently impelled his guest in the direction of the street.

"I want my niece's address," gasped Uncle Fred, clinging like a limpet to the door-post.

"Go along, you silly old sinner!" said the stage-door man, disengaging him. "I'm ashamed of you."

"I will pay you!" said Uncle Fred desperately.

The stage-door man relaxed at once.

"Now you're talking!" he announced.

Five minutes later, after a sordid commercial wrangle, Uncle Fred emerged from the stage door with a slip of paper in his hand. He walked straight into the arms of three members of His Majesty's Forces. They recognised him, and drew back in affected horror.

"What, again?" cried the Canadian. "My God, he's a Mormon! Come along, boys!"

CHAPTER XVI

THE GREAT PRETEND

"And the sweet?" enquired Marjorie, pencil poised.

"Méringues!" said Liss firmly.

"Well, I would say chocolate soufflé every time—with whipped cream, of course!" replied Marjorie. "But have it your own way. Now for the savoury!"

"We don't want a savoury," said Liss.

"Remember," Marjorie reminded her, "that there will be gentlemen present."

"I was forgetting the gentlemen. Well—what?"

"My gentleman friend," said Marjorie, "is very fond of angels-on-horseback."

"All right! You can put them down if you like; only don't ask me to eat them: I expect I shall be stodged by that time, anyhow. Oh Marjie, if only it were true!" Liss hugged her hungry little self, longingly.

"There, that's the complete menu," said Marjorie. She laid down her pencil, took up the writing pad, and began to read:

"Oysters!" She took up her pencil again. "By the way, we can't have oysters."

"Why not?"

"You can only have oysters when there's an R in the month."

"Well, it's August!" said Liss. "And as they aren't going to be there anyhow, they may as well stay in!"

"No," said Marjorie. "This dinner is going to be things we would order here and now—just supposing we could. So don't let us spoil it by putting down impossible things."

Liss at once recognised the logical consistency of this view.

"All right!" she said. "No oysters! Hors d'oeuvres, instead. Then nice hot soup!"

"Yes—Potage à la reine."

"It sounds a bit watery; but I don't mind, so long as it's hot. Oh, how lovely it would be!"

"Sole meunière. That's Roy's favourite."

"Oh—Roy's to be there? That's your pretend, is it?"

Marjorie nodded over her hypothetical menu.

"That's a good idea. Who shall I pretend my man is? Toby?"

"All right."

"In that case, we shall want more than one bottle of champagne. You know what that child is! But never mind that just now! Read out some more food."

"Duckling—"

"And green peas, of course?"

"Of course!"

"What then?"

"That brings us to the méringues."

"Good! That should be enough. We will have coffee and crème de menthe afterwards, of course?"

"We will have cognac as well. You see, Roy—Oh, Liss!" For a moment Marjorie's fortitude forsook her. Her face sank into her friend's fluffy hair.

"Liss, dear," she murmured, "if only I knew!"

"It's Friday afternoon now," said Liss cheerfully. "We'll get lots to eat to-morrow, when the boys come up to town."

"I wasn't thinking of food," said Marjorie—"just then!"

"Well, I was! Oh, my dear, I'm hungry! I didn't know it was possible to be so hungry. What time is it?"

"About five, I think."

"Well, let's have a nice drink of water, and eat a couple of biscuits, and go to bed. It's the best way."

"Very well," said Marjorie listlessly. She was the more exhausted of the two; for Liss was of the ethereal type that seems to thrive on a diet of next-to-nothing. Neither girl had touched food, except a few biscuits, since the previous evening. This afternoon they had endeavoured to maintain morale by indulging in one of the oldest pastimes known to children of the world—the game of "Let's pretend!"—sturdily endeavouring to hold a fire in their hands by thinking on the frosty Caucasus.

Suddenly there came a tapping on the outer door. Both girls started up.

"Who on earth can that be?" said Marjorie, hurrying automatically to the mirror above the mantelpiece.

"I wonder if it is anybody with any money!" remarked Liss, hastily removing herself from the couch, where she had been stifling the pangs of hunger by lying on her front.

"Go and see!" commanded Marjorie, busy at the mirror.

Liss went out into the little vestibule, and reappeared, followed by a visitor. Her face was a study.

"This gentleman wants to see you, dear," she said solemnly. "I will leave you together!"

Marjorie turned hastily round.

"No—stay!" she commanded. "How do you do, Uncle Fred?"

"I am very well, thank you," said Uncle Fred in a low voice. Apprehension was written upon his features, and his large, weak mouth trembled. This adventure was trying him high. To penetrate into the boudoir of an actress—two actresses, apparently—was practically equivalent to visiting a theatre dressing-room, which he knew to be the last station before perdition.

Marjorie shook hands.

"Sit down," she said. "I am afraid we are not quite dressed for callers. Do you mind?"

Uncle Fred shook his head feebly, guiltily conscious that he did not mind enough. His niece was dressed in a very simple blue serge frock, with touches of scarlet at her waist and wrists. She was thinner and paler than when he had last seen her. Late suppers, of course. She had done something theatrical but undeniably becoming to her hair, which, instead of being discreetly piled upon her head, framed her face in a sort of aureole. In order to shake hands with him she had deposited upon the mantelpiece, without any attempt at concealment, a small powder-puff, with which she had obviously been tampering with that infallible symbol of respectability, a shiny nose. She wore very thin black silk stockings and patent leather shoes, with dangerously high heels. One of the shoes had a hole in the sole, but Marjorie kept that sole glued to the floor throughout the interview. The silk stockings had lisle tops, but naturally Uncle Fred did not know this. Blinking feebly, he turned his attention to Marjorie's companion. In the obscurity of the vestibule he had not particularly noticed her. He did so now. His pale blue eyes bulged.

Before him he beheld a small, fluffy creature in a flimsy garment which she would have called a negligée, but which to Uncle Fred looked suspiciously like a nightgown. On her feet were padded pink satin bedroom slippers. Her lips were bright red, and were directing a dazzling smile upon him. There were dark hollows under her large grey eyes. Uncle Fred resolutely averted his gaze, and turned again to his niece.

"This is Miss Lyle," announced Marjorie. "We share the flat. Liss, dear, this is my uncle, Mr. Clegg. Well, Uncle Fred, how are you? I'm sorry we can't offer you tea, but we—we have practically all our meals at a restaurant. Don't we, Liss?"

"We simply live there!" affirmed Liss.

"Will you have a cigarette?" continued Marjorie, offering a box. "Don't mind about that being the last one! There are plenty more."

"I do not smoke," replied Uncle Fred coldly.

"Throw it to me, Marjorie!" chirped the vision in the negligée. A moment later, genuinely oblivious of the sensation she was causing, Liss was lying back in the arm-chair, blowing smoke rings up to the ceiling.

Marjorie proceeded to make conversation.

"Have you been at Netherby lately?" she asked. "I haven't heard a word from anybody there since I left. I wrote to father and mother, but neither of them answered, so I gave it up. I was sorry, all the same. I hear from Joe, of course. Have they conscripted Amos yet? How are the children?"

This was neither the tone nor the temper that Uncle Fred had anticipated from the prodigal. He had expected either flamboyant defiance or broken-hearted contrition—most probably the latter. This resolute, cheery, ladylike—yes, he had to admit it, ladylike—bonhomie was making his mission more difficult than he had anticipated. He cleared his throat.

"I was at Netherby during July," he began. "Your father and mother are well, though borne down with sorrow, over—over—"

"Over what?"

Uncle Fred, who had meant to improve the occasion, baulked at his first fence.

"Over this wicked war," he substituted.

"Well, they haven't much to worry about," said Marjorie composedly. "Joe tells me that he's in no particular danger, except from odd long-range shells. Amos—I suppose he has kept out of it all right?"

"Your brother is in Glasgow," said Uncle Fred, "doing civilian war work of national importance."

"I thought so," said Marjorie. "Trust Amos!"

"Your father," continued Uncle Fred, "commissioned me to ascertain your whereabouts in London—"

"How did you find us, by the way?" asked Marjorie. "It was rather clever of you."

"I set an investigation on foot," replied Uncle Fred with a not very successful assumption of grandeur.

"Quite a little Sherlock Holmes!" remarked an approving voice.

Despite himself, Uncle Fred looked round. The small siren in the arm-chair was regarding him with obvious interest. Doubtless she was taking his moral measure, with a view to ultimate conquest. As a matter of fact, Liss was wondering whether it would be feasible to borrow five shillings from him.

"How did you set about it?" Marjorie continued.

"I decided not to question the police. We were anxious to have as little scandal as possible—"

Marjorie rose with some deliberation, and took her stand upon the hearthrug exactly opposite her diplomatic relative.

"What did you do?" she asked.

"I began by instituting inquiries among the London theatrical managers."

"Then you knew I was working on the stage?"

"Yes. Your mother recognised your likeness in some periodical."

Marjorie nodded her head.

"So that was why father stopped my allowance!" she said. "I was wondering. Well, go on. Father has sent you to see me? What for?"

Uncle Fred had carefully rehearsed the little address which he proposed to deliver to his errant niece. Marjorie's point-blank query gave him as good an opening as he appeared likely to get.

"Your father," he began, settling down to work, "is a just man—"

"Yes; I think you're right there," agreed Marjorie. "He tries to be, anyhow; but he's too ignorant and narrow to succeed. That was why I left home. Go on!"

"Your father," reiterated Uncle Fred, who was of that brand of orator which finds it easier, when interrupted, to go right back to the beginning, "is a just man—"

"Yes; I know. You said that before," said Marjorie.

"No Encores, by Request!" added Liss.

"Your father suggested that when I returned to London I should institute inquiries as to your whereabouts. He was anxious to know if you had been spared during these years, and—"

"That was very kind of him," said Marjorie. "No!"—as Uncle Fred took another breath—"don't go back to the beginning again! 'If I had been spared'—yes?"

"And, if so, what your circumstances were."

"Why?"

"Your father said he would not like to feel that you were in actual destitution, and—"

"Oh! And?"

"I was to tell him if you were."

"And if I were?"

"He did not say; but he practically gave me to understand that if you would send him your assurance that you were truly and humbly repentant, and would endeavour in future, by Divine Grace, to raise yourself from your present condition"—Uncle Fred was settling comfortably down now to his pulpit manner—"he was prepared on his part, to temper justice with mercy. You would be provided for. Of course, you would never be permitted to return home. There are the children to think of—"

Next moment, Uncle Fred had the surprise of his blameless and dreary existence. A small figure in a tempestuous negligée whirled into his field of vision, and Liss—white-faced, stammering, passionate—stood over him.

"What do you mean?" she screamed. "You silly old blear-eyed devil, what do you mean by it? What do you mean by crowding into this flat where you weren't invited, and insulting my Marjie? How dare you! Get out before we throw you out—do you hear? You psalm-singing old nanny-goat, for two pins I'd pull your rotten little beard off!" She flew to Marjorie, and threw an arm round her shoulders. "And to think that real men are dying in this war every minute—and the finest women in the world killing themselves with overwork—just to keep insects like you alive! Why, I—Oh!" She choked.

Marjorie restored her small, hysterical, half-famished champion to the arm-chair.

"That's all right, Baby," she said placidly. "He means well, but he's had the same upbringing as father—poor old man! Sit down! Sit down too, Uncle Fred!" (The dazed ambassador was groping for the door.) "I want to talk to you."

The symposium resumed its session. Uncle Fred was so benumbed by his recent experience that when his late assailant deliberately renovated the scarlet of her lips in his presence he made no protest at all. How quickly a man can become a roué, even at fifty-nine!

"You can tell father," announced Marjorie, "that you gave me his message, and that I know him well enough to understand his point of view. In a way, there's something rather fine about it. I have seen enough of life in the last year or two to know that this world would be none the worse for a touch of good old-fashioned, Old Testament, discipline. Also, that many of my sex aren't to be trusted with a latch-key. But you can remind him, from me, that I am his daughter—and quite capable of taking care of myself!" She sat down again.

"Now, I will tell you exactly what I have been doing during the last two years. Like every decent, able-bodied person in this land, I have been doing what I could in the way of war work. I wasn't able to do as much as I wanted, because my education had been completely neglected; also, as most war work is unpaid, I had to work for my living at the same time. That was why I went on the stage. By working at night I had my days free to serve in a canteen. I have been in the canteen for more than a year now. I am not working at present, because I had a slight accident to my arm. I have also driven a motor-car, for a cabinet minister, liberating a man for active service. That was why I bobbed my hair, so that I could put my service-cap on and off my head easily. Most of us have done it; no one has time to waste over doing hair these days. We girl chauffeurs and munition makers have set quite a fashion. But, of course, you aren't interested in fashions. Besides, bobbed hair doesn't really prove anything. What you want is some direct evidence of what I have been doing." She thought for a moment. "I'll tell you what—I'll show you my motor-driver's licence. I know I put it away somewhere."

She crossed to the bureau, and took the licence out of a drawer.

"Here it is," she said, unfolding it. "You will notice it hasn't been renewed. That was because—"

Her voice died away. Liss glanced up, saw that her friend had turned white, and was swaying on her feet. She ran impulsively to her aid; but in a moment Marjorie had recovered herself, walked across to her flinching relative, and proffered the licence.

"There—you see!" she said. "I drove a car during all that time. It was war work, all right."

Uncle Fred examined the document mechanically, and handed it back.

"That seems quite in order," he muttered.

"Father is a business man, I know," continued Marjorie, with a cheery smile; "and I know business men like to see evidence in black and white. You can keep that licence, if you like, and send it to him from me, as a certificate of character, and tell him that I am very well—and busy—and happy—and respectable—and don't require providing for in any way whatever. And you can give my love to mother."

Uncle Fred rose to his feet, and held out his hand hesitatingly. Down in his puny soul he dimly felt himself in the presence of something rather unusually big.

"I will tell your father I have seen you," he said, "and what you have told me. And I'm—I'm sorry, if—"

Marjorie cut him short.

"That's all right!" she said, with great cheerfulness. "It was a difficult mission for you, I know, and I'm not surprised you made a mess of it. Now," she added briskly, "I feel terribly inhospitable at not having given you any tea. Liss and I are just going out to dinner. It's—it's—rather a special occasion with us, and we are going to have an extra good one. Won't you join us?"

She crossed to the bureau again, and picked up the writing-pad.

"We are going," she announced, resolutely avoiding the bulging eyes of Miss Elizabeth Lyle, "to have Potage à la reine, Sole meunière, Duckling, Méringues—"

But Uncle Fred was down and out.

"I can't accept," he replied, almost piteously. "I must be off to Dulwich. But thank you kindly!" He moved to the door. "I will write to your father. Good-bye, my girl!" He nodded nervously towards Liss. "Good-evening, all!"

Next moment the vestibule door had clicked behind him, and the girls were alone.

Liss threw her arms round Marjorie's neck.

"O magnificent, wonderful angel! How you stood up to that silly old Nosey Parker! How you put him in his place! How you bluffed him! But, darling, what a risk! Supposing he had accepted—what then?"

"What then?" Marjorie laughed unsteadily. "We would have taken him round the corner to Savroni's, and given him his dinner—every bit of it—that's all!"

Liss looked timidly up into her idol's face.

"Dearest," she enquired apprehensively, "are you feeling funny, at all? I don't like the way your fist is clenched. Relax!"

"I'm not feeling funny," Marjorie assured her, relaxing the fist in question. "Unless it's funny to be rich!" She held out her hand. "Look! Look what I found inside the pocket of my motor licence! I might have guessed, after that message. Dear, kind old man! I might have guessed—bless him!"

In her upturned palm lay a neatly folded bank-note.

Liss's eyes goggled.

"How much?" she whispered.

"We'll see." Marjorie unfolded the rustling treasure-trove. "Ten pounds! Now wasn't I right not to put down oysters? Oh, Baby, if only, only, only we had the guests!"

But Fortune, once she veers round, seldom does things by halves. There came a knock on the outer door.

"Hallo!" cried Liss. "Surely it's not that old Nanny back again?"

It was not. It was a soldier—or rather, an elderly civilian in uniform. He saluted, with all the elaboration of the newly initiated. Both girls surveyed him in perplexity. Then Liss screamed:

"It's Uncle Ga-Ga!" and embraced him forthwith.

Uncle Ga-Ga it was. With his hair dyed a new and awe-inspiring colour, and an almost convincing set of false teeth, he did not look a day over forty-five. He held his old head proudly erect, and offered a hand to each of the girls, with a gallant gesture.

"Yes, ladies," he said; "I have the great happiness to inform you that I have this day been accepted as a member of His Majesty's Forces. I wear the uniform of King George the Fifth." His right hand went to the salute. "The King—God bless him! I have only just put it on, and I came round here at once to show myself to you—my two kind friends and unfailing supporters! There were some of my colleagues"—his mild eyes flashed—"men who should have known better—who derided my pretensions—who said that the King had no need of my services! But not you, ladies! You knew the King better than they did! Now, behold me! It is a common triumph for us all!"

"And we are going to celebrate it!" announced Liss. "You are coming straight out to dinner with us—isn't he, Marjorie?"

"Most certainly he is!" said Marjorie.

"We are going," proclaimed Liss, "to have Potage à la reine; Sole meunière—"

Uncle Ga-Ga laid his hand upon his heart, and made a courtly bow.

"Ladies," he announced, "you overwhelm me! But before I accede to your most hospitable invitation, pray read this: it may affect your immediate plans. I found it lying thrust under your outer door."

He proffered an orange-coloured envelope. It was addressed to Marjorie.

Telegrams in war-time take tense priority over everything else. Marjorie seized the envelope, ripped open the flap with one feverish movement, took out the message, and carried it to the window to read. Then, very deliberately, for the first and only time in her life, she slid down upon the floor, with her head on the window-seat, in a dead faint."

"Oh, God!" cried Liss, running to her—"it must be something about Roy!"

They carried her to the sofa, and laid her down. Her eyes were closed, but began to flutter again almost immediately.

"The telegram—should we read it? Would it be right?" asked Uncle Ga-Ga.

"Oh, yes!" said Liss: "I'd forgotten about it." She turned back Marjorie's closed fingers, extracted the crumpled message, and smoothed it out. Then she gave a little sudden chuckling sob.

"Listen!" she said; and read the message aloud....

"Sent off from Folkestone," she added breathlessly, "at four-forty. What time is it now?"

"About half-past six, I think."

"Then he will be here any minute!" cried Liss, in sudden panic. "We must get her to for him," she added, in the mysterious syntax of her kind. "Help me, Uncle!"

"A lovely face!" observed Uncle Ga-Ga, respectfully, as he assisted Liss in administering to Marjorie what they both firmly believed to be First Aid—"but pale, and thin!" He sighed gently. "It is rather beautiful to think that people can still swoon for joy."

"Not joy," said Liss, panting—"starvation! But she'll have her guest at dinner, after all. (She's coming to now.) It's been a great pretend! (Darling, lean your head on me.) She'll be as right as rain to-morrow. In fact, she's jolly well got to be. It's her wedding day!"

CHAPTER XVII

THE UNDEFEATED

This morning I went to church, in a real church—the parish church of Craigfoot. After more than three years, I found myself once again in the Baronrigg gallery.

Of late, I have become accustomed to performing my religious exercises in the open air, in a boggy field of Flanders or Picardy, struggling, in company with a choir of some hundreds of devout, mud-splashed "Jocks," armed to the teeth and insufficiently supplied with hymn-books, to produce a respectable volume of psalmody; or listening resignedly, in an east wind, to a sermon replete with apposite references to the canker-wurrum and the pammer-wurrum, delivered with gusto by an untimely young chaplain newly out from home.

I shared the Baronrigg pew with the Matron of the Eskerley Auxiliary Military Hospital, and some half-dozen restive convalescents in hospital blue. It was January, and bitter cold, but no fire burned in old Neil Carrick's grate at the back of the gallery. The coal ration—like the thermometer—hovered near to zero in those days.

Of the rightful occupants of the pew there was no representative. The son of the house was commanding his company somewhere in the neighbourhood of La Bassée: at least, that was where I had left him last week. The master—well, there I was no wiser than the rest. All I knew was what I had read in the letter which he had written me at the time of his disappearance—a letter very similar in substance and temper to that received by his son.

My eyes wandered over the familiar scene below. Here, too, were changes: even the immutable ritual of a Scottish parish church had been affected by forty-one months of war. Doctor Chirnside was still in command. He was preaching the sermon now—on a text from his beloved Isaiah—more gaunt, more eagle-eyed, more uncompromising than ever. The parish, I knew, were of the opinion that "the auld man was failing." Still, there he was, sticking to his post.

"The most practical way," he had declared recently to a tactfully inquisitive Kirk Session, "to maintain national efficiency at a time of abnormal national wastage is for those of us who are spared to increase our output; to work longer hours—longer years, in my case—in order to make good the loss of those who have been called from our midst. So, though I have laboured long in the vineyard; though I have lingered long in the arena, and am now perhaps dignus rude donari, I shall remain at my post until God giveth the Victory. In other words, Gentlemen, you may whistle for my resignation!"

Still, the influences of the time seemed to have affected the Doctor like the rest of us. He was more human, less Olympian. The First Prayer—in which, it may be remembered, the Doctor was accustomed to commune with his Maker to the pointed exclusion of the congregation—was now much shorter. The Second Prayer—the Prayer of Intercession—was considerably longer, and very moving to hear. In that prayer, week by week, the progress of the Great War was reviewed—reviewed from the standpoint of an obscure but not altogether undutiful little parish in the Lowlands of Scotland. Not a boy from that parish, be he laird's son or herd laddie, fell in action on this front or that but the fact was duly noted, with sorrowful pride and amazing tenderness, in the Prayer of Intercession in the Parish Kirk of Craigfoot on the following Sabbath.

There were many such events to record. The Roll of Honour, fluttering in the draughty porch outside, bore witness to that fact. So did the composition of the congregation. Most of the men present were forty-five years old and upwards. Those below that age were mainly in khaki. But it was the women who told the most eloquent tale. The three tall daughters of Sir Alistair Graeme—The Three Grenadiers—still sat side by side in the Burling pew, to all appearances unchanged except for their V.A.D. uniforms. Yet I knew that each of those girls had been made a wife and widow within three short years. Mrs. Gillespie, the Bank Manager's wife, on the other hand, made no pretence of being the same woman: her son Robert, the Divinity student, had died of dysentery in Mesopotamia. Of the Misses Peabody, only the elder now sat in the pew. The younger was dead—dead of overwork as a ward-maid in a Base Hospital. None disputed her claim to be of the elect now. Little Mrs. Menzies, the wife of Lord Eskerley's late factor, was changed too—but only in name. She had done her bit—by becoming the widow of a D.S.O. and promptly marrying a C.M.G.

Looking further afield, I observed that old Couper and his wife were almost crowded out of their pew by a string of grandchildren, billeted upon Abbotrigg until such time as a newly-widowed daughter-in-law could adjust her compasses again. I missed the kindly vacant countenance of my friend Jamie Leslie, our organ-blower, which had usually been visible, on pre-war days, peering furtively round the red rep curtain which screened the organ-bellows from view. His place was now occupied by a bucolic young gentleman of thirteen. Subsequent inquiry on my part elicited the news that Jamie had at last achieved his heart's desire and been accepted for the Army, the authorities having very properly decided that what was sauce for the Staff was sauce for the rank-and-file.

In a back pew under the gallery I noticed old Mrs. Rorison, accompanied by her giant son, Jock, the Scots Guardsman—discharged, permanently unfit, with a crippled foot. I had met the pair in Main Street the day before.

"That's bad luck, Jock!" I had said, noting his crutches.

"It's naething of the kind!" replied Jock's mother, tartly. (She usually replied for Jock.) "See him, sir! Sax feet fower—and gets himsel' shot in the fit! I doot he was standing on his head in they trenches!" concluded the old lady bitterly. "Trust him!"

Eric was sitting in the Buckholm pew, with his lady mother: I was to lunch with them presently. I surveyed my friend's handsome profile, his empty sleeve, and the medal ribbons on his uniform. I thought of our regiment—which I now commanded and which he himself had led. I thought of the day, eighteen months since, when we had carried him away insensible, followed by what was left of our personnel, from that tight corner opposite Beaumont Hamel. Eric was home now with a decoration and a soft job—the idol and the oracle of the country-side. I had not been decorated, or even mentioned in Dispatches, but I had, so far, preserved a whole skin—which was far better—and been confirmed in my rank. Though lean and grizzled, I still felt fighting fit, and had no desire to change places with any one. I was staying at The Heughs—a sober household in those days, for my brother Walter had lost his eldest boy at Gallipoli. Of the other two, John was helping to navigate one of His Majesty's Destroyers, while the youngest, Alan, my namesake and particular crony, was consuming his impatient young soul—to his mother's private relief—at Sandhurst.

"Finally, my brethren"—began Doctor Chirnside; and I knew that we were within five minutes of the end of the sermon. The maimed men beside me wriggled in relieved anticipation, then settled down again; and I hastened to conclude my church inspection.

I glanced across to the Netherby pew. Mr. and Mrs. Clegg were both there, with the younger children. The two grown-up sons were absent: I remembered having heard vaguely that one of them had enlisted and that the other had secured a "cushie" job somewhere. The fair daughter was nowhere to be seen. I was sorry, because a thing of beauty is a joy for ever—especially during a long sermon. I wondered what had become of her—and Master Roy's infatuation. I had once or twice, during the early days in France, made playful allusion to the lady in Roy's presence, but my pleasantries had not been well received, and had been discontinued.

I gave a final glance round the church.

"Plus ça change—!" I said to myself.

But I was a little too quick in my judgment.

"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary: they shall walk, and not faint. May God sanctify to us this poor exposition of His Word; and to Him alone be the glory and the praise!"

The last sentence, at least, was familiar enough. It had rounded off every one of Doctor Chirnside's sermons, to my certain knowledge, for the last thirty-five years. The congregation came to life: the organ-bellows began to pump, almost automatically, for the last hymn. The elders of the kirk fumbled under their seats for the collection-bags.

We rose on a triumphant chord from the little organ, and sang the hymn—stoutly enough, and with that prickly sensation at the back of the nose which attacks undemonstrative people engaged in a slightly emotional exercise; for the hymn was "Onward, Christian Soldiers"! I learned afterwards that it had been sung (alternately with the hymn For Those at Sea), at the close of morning worship every single Sunday since the regular casualty lists had started. Then, in good Scottish fashion, we remained standing for Doctor Chirnside's patriarchal and impressive Benediction.

"May the Peace of God, which Passeth All Understanding..."

His old voice died away; and I was on the point of stooping down to grope for my glengarry, when I became conscious of a gradual stiffening in the attitude of the congregation. The organ began to rumble again. (I could see the young organ-blower working as if to crack every muscle in his back.) Then, suddenly, explosively, with every pedal and stop in action, it crashed into "God Save the King"!

Instinctively I came to attention. But though my head was immovable, I fear I allowed my eyes to stray downward to the scene below. Here was an unexpected test of war spirit.

Our National Anthem is a curious canticle; you never know what it will do with you. It may cause you to feel merely ridiculous—as when an orchestra of aliens in a restaurant drags you to your feet in the middle of your soup. Too often it elicits a purely perfunctory acknowledgment. But there are occasions when the sound of it grips the very heart of you; when you are conscious, deep down in your well-ordered British soul, of a sudden, tremendous, irresistible wave of passionate loyalty to the Sovereign who rules you and the thousand-year-old tradition for which he stands. Here was such an occasion. Here, in this little church, was our battle hymn being thundered forth, after more than three years of battle, to a community who had been paying the maximum price for their participation therein. How would they take it?

My field of vision was naturally constricted, but without moving my head I could command a fair view. Eric Bethune, of course, was standing as straight as a ramrod. So was the elder Miss Peabody—also the three poor Grenadiers. The wounded men beside me stiffened their twisted bodies proudly: evidently it was incumbent upon them to teach the rest of the congregation something.

Finally, my eyes fell upon the Abbotrigg pew. Old Couper and his wife were standing side by side, with bowed heads. I saw that they were holding hands. Beside them, in order of size, were ranged five small figures in black—three boys and two girls—the grandchildren whose father had fallen in action six days ago. They did not look too well-fed—milk and meat were not over plentiful in those days—but they stood shoulder to shoulder in a perfectly aligned row, emulating the soldiers in the gallery above. It was difficult to believe that they had not rehearsed the formation. (Probably they had, under the personal direction of a martinet home on leave.) Each small head was held resolutely up; each small chest—situated rather low down, as is usual when we are very young—was thrust resolutely forward; each small pair of arms pointed rigidly to the floor; and each pair of round eyes gazed fixedly and unblinkingly into space.

Suddenly, I saw nothing more. But I remember feeling reassured about things.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE OLD ORDER

After church I joined Lady Christina and Eric, and was conveyed in a very ancient victoria—her ladyship had "put down" the motor, owing to petrol difficulties—to Buckholm for luncheon. I noticed that my friend Bates no longer attended to the front door; he was now, I gathered, guarding our coast from invasion somewhere in Suffolk. His deputy was a grim-looking crone in a black skirt, silver-buttoned coat, and yellow waistcoat, which made her look something between a female impersonator and a prison wardress. I seemed to have encountered her in a previous existence hanging washing on a line on the drying-green behind the Buckholm orchard. She relieved me of my glengarry, gloves, and stick, and demanded my ration-book.

"There will be meat for dinner," she explained.

I handed over the emergency ration-book with which soldiers on leave were supplied in those days. It was returned to me when I left the house, lacking not only one full meat coupon, but all the butter and sugar coupons as well.

"Her leddyship said you would no be needing them," explained the wardress, and I meekly acquiesced. If Lady Christina said that I did not need a thing, who was I to say that I did? In any case I was due to rejoin the best-fed Army in the world in a few days' time.

The luncheon party consisted of Lady Christina, as bolt upright as ever, at the head of the table; Eric, at the foot; Lord Eskerley; and a weather-beaten Lieutenant-Commander of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, named John Wickersham. Five years ago he had been mainly known to fame as a prominent King's Counsel, a superb bridge-player, and a fair-weather yachtsman. Now, for three years or more, his converted pleasure-craft, navigated by its owner and enrolled an original member of a certain silent, unadvertised brotherhood of the sea, had been keeping grim vigil over our island coast, with such effect that German submarine crews were breaking into open mutiny rather than face that flotilla of terror any longer. John Wickersham was ashore on long leave, for the first time for many months.

Doctor Chirnside, who seldom missed his Sunday luncheon at Buckholm, had been called away, to say what he could to a girl-wife who had just received a telegram from the War Office.

Having consumed its meat ration and sugarless apple tart, the company proceeded to mitigate the austerity of Lady Christina's war-time régime with a glass of port. Then, after a perfunctory and short-lived struggle, we yielded to the inevitable and settled down to the topic of the military situation. It was a curious experience for me, who had heard little round that peaceful table since boyhood but hunting shop and county gossip, to find myself involved in the same eternal debate as was exercising every mess, billet, and dug-out on the Western Front—a debate distinguished in both cases by extreme personal bias and entire ignorance of essential details. It is hardly necessary to mention that Lord Eskerley, the one person who could have enlightened us, offered no contribution.

Naturally we concentrated upon the rumours of the knock-out blow which Germany was preparing to deal her arch-enemy in the early spring—a blow which came near, in the actual event, to driving a wedge between the armies of France and Britain, and establishing a German base on the English Channel. But in January, nineteen-eighteen, when we had not lost a field-gun or a trench system since the First Battle of Ypres, and had been steadily winning back the soil of France and accumulating German prisoners for more than three years, no one took such a possibility seriously. Eric was particularly sanguine.

"A good thing, too!" he said. "Let them come! Then we can sit well back, and make a clean job of the lot, instead of getting hot and dusty going to look for them! This war will end when we have killed enough Boches; and if the Boches will help us by coming along to get killed—and you know what the Boche can do in that way once he gives his mind to it—there will be no complaints on our side. I feel—"

This characteristic pronouncement was interrupted by Lord Eskerley.

"It's only human nature, you know," he said. "You can't blame them. Naturally they think of their own front first. Must!"

This did not seem to fit in well with the rest of the conversation—a not altogether unusual feature of his lordship's table-talk.

"Napoleon was right," he continued. "Or was it Hannibal? Said he would sooner fight two first-class generals collaborating than one single-handed second-rater. It works out this way. Tweedledum says to Tweedledee: 'You must take over more Front.' Tweedledee says to Tweedledum: 'It can't be done! Look at my casualty list for the last three months!' Tweedledum replies: 'But you are only holding about half as much line as I am.' Thereupon Tweedledee produces statistics to show that although he holds the shorter line he has sixty-seven and a half per cent. of the enemy massed against him. And so it goes on. The old game! I believe that in Bohemian circles it is known as 'Passing the Buck.' A colloquial but apposite expression! I picked it up from an American attaché in Paris. In due course we shall come to the only solution—a Supreme Commander, responsible for the safety of the whole line. But, as usual, we shall pay in advance—through the nose!"

The import of the old gentleman's ruminations was now tolerably apparent to all; that is, to all but our hostess.

"Eh, what? What's he talking about?" she inquired sharply of me. (Of late, Lady Christina's hearing has deteriorated a little.) "What's he talking about? Tell me; he mumbles so! What's all this nonsense about Tweedledee and Tweedledum? Who are Tweedledee and Tweedledum? They sound like people out of Punch—two of those wretches in the Government. In German pay, every man-jack of them! Do you know what Bessie Brickshire told me last week? She went to Downing Street—"

"Your leddyship's coffee is up the stair," announced the deep voice of the prison wardress; and a libellous and irrelevant anecdote was nipped in the bud.

Lady Christina rose, informed us that she proposed to take her coffee in her own room, and, with a passing admonition to her son to be sparing of the saccharine, left us to ours.

We lit cigars and stretched ourselves, like schoolboys relieved of the pedagogue's presence.

"How do they feel about things in general up at the top, Eskerley?" asked John Wickersham. "We never hear any news in our job. Are they all quite happy and comfortable?"

"Not at all!" replied his lordship brusquely.

"What's the trouble?"

"Not enough troops."

"How? The number of Divisions on the Western Front hasn't been reduced, has it?"

"Oh, dear, no. We are as strong as ever—on paper. But instead of going frankly to the Labour bosses and telling them that another half-million men must be released from civilian employment, our politicians have reduced the personnel of each Division from thirteen battalions to ten—nearly twenty-five per cent. It's an admirable scheme, because it satisfies so many people. It satisfies the politician, because it saves his face; it satisfies the slacker, because it saves his skin; and it satisfies the Boche, because it's going to save him a lot of trouble when he makes his spring offensive. The only people who are inclined to criticise it are the insignificant individuals who are responsible for the safety of the Western Front. In fact, they are crying out to Heaven for more men. But, of course, nobody takes any notice of recommendations from such a prejudiced person as a soldier. His turn will come later, when the scapegoats are being rounded up." The old gentleman sighed. "That's one of our worries. The other is that we have too many Allies."

"I see! Too many cooks—eh?"

"Precisely! I spend all my working hours nowadays propitiating plenipotentiaries from countries whose existence I had never heard of two years ago. By the time I have recognised the status of this Ally, and soothed the susceptibilities of that, the day is over and there's no time left to get on with the war. I sometimes sigh for the era when the French and ourselves muddled along by rule of thumb without having to expend any tact upon anybody, except a periodical slap on the back to Russia. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers!—and so on. Life was simple then. Now it is a perpetual Pentecost, without the feast. Give me a forlorn hope and a lone hand every time; that's an invincible combination—eh, Alan?"

"I agree," I said. "In the first year or so there was a sort of cheerful, simple, all-in-the-same-boat feeling about everything. The French liked us; there was not too many of us; and what there were were perfectly disciplined—old Regulars and the pick of 'K's' Army; or else Indian troops, with the manners of Hidalgoes. Now, the average French citizen never wants to see an ally again—"

Lord Eskerley nodded.

"Exactly!" he said. "And I can't say I blame him. I sometimes feel that way myself. We're a fairly promiscuous lot. We may be a host of modern crusaders, but we're a crowd! I feel like old McKechnie at the revivalist meeting here five years ago, who refused to stand up and be 'saved' with the rest because he objected to going to heaven 'with a d——d Cheap Trup!' Still, we mustn't be ungrateful. Our post entries may have complicated the machine, but they have made it a pretty reliable piece of mechanism."

"What I complain of," interposed Eric, "is that we, upon whom the whole burden fell at the start, are almost forgotten now. Most of us have ceased to exist, and the rest are lost in a mob of amateurs."

"The wrong attitude entirely!" announced Lord Eskerley promptly.

"What's the right attitude, then?" asked Eric, who hated correction almost as much as Lord Eskerley delighted to administer it to him.

"The right attitude," replied the old man, with sudden seriousness, "should be a feeling of pride that We were fortunate enough to find ourselves Original Members of the Brotherhood—to hold Founders' Shares. When the edifice is completed—and completed it will be—the world won't be able to see the foundations. But they will be there all right! And we shall know who laid them—the Old Order!"

"What do you mean by the Old Order?" asked Eric. "The landed gentry?"

"Far more than that. I mean the people to whom this country, as such, has always really meant something; I mean every mother's son who felt the ancient spirit of our race wake in him, perhaps for the first time, when the challenge came in Nineteen Fourteen. I don't care who he was—squire's son, parson's son, miner's son, poacher's son—it was all the same. If he was conscious then of that single blind impulse to get up and play the game, just because it was the game; just because it was impossible to do otherwise—without any dialectics about Freedom, or Altruism, or Democracy, or whether his job would be kept open for him or not; simply because the Blood told him to—then he belonged to the Old Order! He held a Founder's Share, all right!

"Of course," the old man continued presently, "the more one has to give the more one is expected to give, at a time like this. And as a rule it seems to be the best that is taken. 'This is the heir; come, let us kill him!'—that has been the general attitude of the War Gods. Only the very best would suffice—only the very best!"

We sat silent again. Lord Eskerley himself had lost his two sons, and his only grandson. After him, what was to become of the ancient title—of the "Big Hoose" and its "policies"—of the family which had served the State for three hundred years? "This is the heir!" How true that was. I thought of my brother Walter's eldest son. Fortunately in this case there were two more. And Roy? What would become of Baronrigg, if—

But Lord Eskerley was speaking again—more to himself than to us.

"The Old Order! The Willing Horse! There's hardly an estate, or a farm, or an allotment, in this country-side, or in any part of Scotland or England, that has not changed hands, prospectively at least, during the last three years. And what with designedly disruptive death duties, and income tax on the same scale, levied on people who have no personal income—only a few precious, ancient, barren acres—the old estates are passing right away from the original owners—one half sold to pay the charges on the other half. It seems a queer way of rewarding people who have given everything—to sell them up because they have nothing more to give! Still, one has the supreme satisfaction of having played the game. Our record stands—" He broke off. "I apologise: I was sermonising! Bad habit!" He looked at his watch. "Three o'clock! I must go; a trunk call comes through from London every afternoon at four. Alan, I will give you a lift."

A few minutes later I found myself rolling home in an unaccustomed motor.

"I still get twenty gallons a month," explained Lord Eskerley. "Business of State, and so on. Going back soon?"

"Thursday," I said.

"Well, enjoy the war while you can. When it is over there will be no peace for anybody. After the Boche has given his last expiring kick we are going to sit down to a Peace Congress in comparison with which the Congress of Vienna will take rank as a model of sagacity and altruism. The Millennium that we are all composing cantatas about is not coming—yet."

"Are we going to have more wars, then?" I asked, gazing rather dejectedly at the red, wintry sunset.

"We are always going to have more wars," replied my companion testily—"and then more! (The final war will be between men and women. Even that won't really settle anything, because there will be too much rendering aid and comfort to the enemy going on.) By the way, how is Roy?"

I reported favourably upon my nephew's health and service record.

"I suppose you know," I remarked, "that Tom Birnie appointed yourself and myself Roy's trustees and executors?"

"Yes. Tom wrote me a letter to that effect before he enlisted."

"He did enlist, then?"

"I believe so."

I did not press for details. Lord Eskerley has means at his disposal of discovering most of the secrets of this world—which is not to say that he is accustomed to pass these on to third parties.

"Have you seen Roy," I continued, "or heard from him of late?"

"I have not seen him, and he has not favoured me with a single line since he went out for the first time. By the way, I observe she received a decoration the other day—for conspicuous bravery during an air-raid."

"Who?"

"Who? The girl!"

"The girl? You mean—the Netherby girl? Is that affaire still—?"

"Yes. Name of Clegg. You know what became of her, I suppose?"

"No. Roy has never been communicative on the subject, although I believe he used to maintain a correspondence with her. The junior members of the mess were quite intrigued about it. I had almost forgotten her existence. What became of her?"

"She couldn't stand Papa's peaceful principles, so ran away from home and came to London. I employed her to drive my car for some time; but she left me. Said the work wasn't hard enough. She now supports herself on the stage, so as to have her days free for some sort of drudgery in a canteen."

"And you think that she and Roy still—

"Married, last August!" replied his lordship simply.

"What?"

"On the quiet—registry office! Wonderful, heavenly secret, and all that! How the young love a clandestine romance! And some of us never grow up!" added the old man complacently.

CHAPTER XIX

THE LAST THROW

"I'm sorry, gentlemen," said the Divisional Commander, "but I can't possibly let any unit proceed to rest areas at present. Our orders are to stand by, day and night, and be ready to move in any direction at an hour's notice. By the way, this is quite an informal meeting, so ask any questions you like."

"What is the latest news of the tactical situation, sir?" inquired the senior Brigadier, articulating the question that was on every one's lips.

We were gathered together at a Commanding Officers' Meeting. The Division had just emerged from four months of winter trench-warfare in the north—only to be diverted from its search for well-earned repose by an urgent summons to repair southward without delay to its ancient stamping-ground behind Albert. We had marched all night, to be intercepted at dawn by orders to bivouac where we stood. I myself was summoned to the meeting, hastily convened in a village school five miles farther on.

"It's a pretty sticky business all round," said the General frankly. "The situation appears to be this. As you know, it has been obvious for months that the Boche has been meditating a tremendous offensive against some part of the British front. The Commander-in-Chief, not having sufficient troops to give adequate protection to the whole of his line—

"Why hasn't he sufficient troops?" inquired a voice—the voice of the C.R.A., a fiery old gentleman with a monocle. He was a coeval of the General's, so was qualified to act as cross-examiner for us lesser lights.

"It's not my business to explain, or ours to wonder. I can only give you the facts. Last year the British Army had, roughly speaking, one million casualties. This year the British Army is fighting in France, Belgium, Italy, Saloniki, Palestine, Mesopotamia, the Indian frontier, and East Africa; so you can imagine the clamour for reinforcements that is going on all over the globe. Thirdly, the French, not long ago, asked us to take over another twenty-eight miles of line. We did so; with the result that the C.-in-C. found himself in the position of having to decide, since he hadn't enough men to hold all the line securely, where he must hold on at all costs, and where he could afford to take chances. Obviously, he had to make the Straits of Dover impregnable; so the northern part of the line got the lion's share of troops. Down here, the Fifth Army were strung out to a beggarly bayonet per yard. North of them, the Third Army had about three bayonets to two yards. Opposite this line, during the past few weeks, the Boche was known to have accumulated a force averaging seven bayonets per yard—" A low murmur ran round the crowded little school-room. It was fully light now, and we could see one another's startled faces. "In other words, sixty or seventy divisions. Against that force we had available twenty-two divisions in the line, with twelve infantry divisions and three cavalry divisions in reserve. The attack opened six days ago. The Boches, as usual, had the Devil's own luck with the weather—thick mist—and were on us in a solid phalanx before we saw them at all. I may add that they were backed by the most terrific concentration of artillery fire on record, and raised unexpected Sheol in our back areas by a new very long range gas-shell. By all the rules they ought to have wiped us right out. But they didn't. We were bowled over again and again; but we always managed to re-form some sort of line—until the want of reserves began to tell, and brigades and divisions, thinned out to nothing, began to draw in upon themselves and leave gaps on their flanks. The cavalry worked like heroes to cover the intervals; but they couldn't be everywhere, and one position after another was outflanked and had to be given up. Noyon has gone; Péronne has gone; Monchy has gone; the whole Somme battle-field of Nineteen-Sixteen has gone. Even Albert"—there came a groan here from all of us who had fought in the Somme battle—"has fallen into Boche hands. Yes, I know! But things might be worse. Arras is holding fast; and the good old Vimy Ridge is still standing right up to them. It's tolerably certain now that the Boche was booked to get Amiens in three days. He hasn't got it; and if we can continue to make him pay his present price he will never get it at all."

There was small comfort in this. The very fact that Amiens had become a Boche possibility was a staggerer in itself. We thought of the Hôtel du Rhin, and other haunts of ancient peace, and sighed.

"How is morale?" asked the C.R.A.

The General held up a paper.

"Here is the Commander-in-Chief's latest dispatch," he said. "Listen to this, gentlemen!"

At no time was there anything approaching a breakdown of command or a failure of morale. Under conditions that made rest and sleep impossible for days together, officers and men remained undismayed, realising that for the time being they must play a waiting game, and determined to make the enemy pay the full price for the advantage which, for the moment, was his.

We broke into applause. We could not help it.

"Naturally," continued the General, "the strain has been awful, because we are employing tired men, fighting without reinforcements against ever fresh bodies of troops. However, more divisions are coming down from the north—you are one of the first arrivals—and Foch has taken supreme command, which means that hereafter the Allied forces will be more evenly distributed and the line stabilised. The long and short of it all is that the enemy has been frustrated, for the time being, in his amiable attempt to drive a wedge between the British and French armies."

"Still," said the voice of the C.R.A., "I suppose the situation is pretty critical?"

"Critical isn't the word! But the line is still intact, though badly bent, and we have beaten all our previous records for Boche-killing, which is saying something. And if they fail to break through—good-bye Germany! It's their last throw. A German who knows he cannot win is a German beaten. Now, gentlemen, you will understand why it is that you cannot go into retirement at present. That's all, I think! To your tents, O Israel—and breakfast! But be ready to move at an hour's notice."

Roy and I jogged wearily back across country to the field where the men were bivouacking. Roy was my senior company commander, and I had brought him to the meeting in preference to the adjutant, who was very young and already bowed down with regimental routine. Roy, a seasoned Ironside of twenty-two, with two-and-a-half years continuous active service to his record, was now my shield and buckler and right-hand man.

We had little to say to one another. We were both dog-tired, and were suffering in addition from that unpleasant form of reaction which comes from hope deferred. We were thinking, too, of the men. They had completed four months of exhausting and expensive trench duty, working by "internal reliefs," which really means no relief at all; each man staying his dour dogged heart with the only two consolations available in those days—the humdrum certainty of ultimate relief by another division, and the ever present possibility of a "Blighty" wound. And now, when they had actually packed up and removed out of the shell area, with a spell of rest and relaxation well within their grasp, they found themselves pulled back into the line. That sort of experience is a severer test of morale than an intensive bombardment. The danger was that they might go stale—just as I had once seen a highly-trained college crew go, when the races were postponed for a week owing to ice on the river.

"We will call a pow-wow when we get back," I said to Roy, "and tell the officers to explain matters to the men as well as they can. They must sing the usual song about our trusty old indispensable Division, the prop and stay of the weaker brethren, proudly filling the breach and saving the situation, and so forth."

"They'll respond all right," said Roy confidently. "They are a wonderful crowd."

"They certainly are; but it will break their hearts if they are shoved back for another spell of trench duty. Of course, if we go right into the scrap, with a fair chance to get above ground and grab the Boche by the ears, they won't mind at all—quite the reverse. It will be a perfect tonic."

"If half of what His Nibs said is true, they'll get all the tonic they want!" remarked my sage young companion. "We're for it, this time!"

He was right. Even at that moment our task had been assigned to us; for when we reached Battalion Headquarters—a G.S. waggon in the corner of a field, in the middle of which certain incurable greathearts were playing football—we found that the telephone had outstripped us, and that our orders were waiting.

We gobbled breakfast, with that curious mingling of sentiment and satisfaction which comes to men who are not sure if they will ever see a poached egg again. Then I summoned my officers. I passed on to them the substance of the General's statement, and spoke of the gaps that were being created in the line by lack of reinforcements.

"Such a gap," I explained, "has occurred almost directly in front of us, along the crest of a low ridge called Primrose Hill. (The Adjutant will give you the map reference in a minute.) The gap is being filled at present by a rather raw battalion of newly-arrived Territorials, rushed up from Corps Reserve. It is a very important point, and we are to go in and stiffen them. Written orders will be issued to you immediately; but it may save time if I mention that I propose to march the battalion direct to the back of Primrose Hill, deploy, and advance in lines of companies until we strike the trench system which the Royal Loyals are holding. In that way we ought to be able to plug any possible gap in the shortest possible time. We may have to advance through a barrage; but that, of course, is all in the day's work. Company commanders will take such precautions as are possible to ensure the safety of their men, but they must not waste time on this occasion looking for covered lines of advance. In other words, the situation is critical, and must be tackled bald-headed. The point of deployment, as at present fixed, is a blacksmith's forge on the road running direct from here to Primrose Hill. It is marked in the map, Michelin Forge; there's a big motor-tyre advertisement on the western gable, the Brigade Major tells me. I shall go there now myself, and establish temporary headquarters. Companies will move off independently in succession, A Company leading. Company commanders will report at Michelin Forge for further instructions. Later, after we have deployed and advanced up the reverse slope of Primrose Hill—it is a mere swelling in the ground, as a matter of fact—Battalion Headquarters will be established, if possible, in a point d'appui just behind the crest, called Fountain Keep. It is a ruined ornamental garden, I believe, with the wreck of a fountain in the middle. I hope you'll all arrive there in due course—and find me there! That's all! Good luck to you!"

My officers saluted in a manner that warmed my heart, and hurried off to their duties. I felt sorry I had not been able to give them a more stirring harangue: I felt sure that Eric would have done so. Still, harangue or no harangue, I knew they would lead their men to the crest of Primrose Hill. I looked after them affectionately. Most of them I never saw again from that hour. But I remember them all to-day—their faces, their voices, their characteristics. They were of many types—the variegated types of a whole nation at last in arms. There were Public School and Sandhurst products, like Roy; there were promoted rankers, with permanently squared shoulders and little waxed moustaches; there were professional and business men verging on middle-age, who had long shed their stomachs and acquired a genuine passion for army forms and regimental routine. The last two figures that caught my eye were those of my machine-gun officer, a Mathematical Fellow of an ancient Cambridge college, and Adams, second-in-command of B Company, who in a previous existence had officiated as under gate-porter in the same foundation. The British Army in those days was one great ladder, up which all men, gentle or simple, might climb if they had the character and the will. In that army at the end of the war there was a Divisional General who had been editor of a newspaper; there was a Brigadier-General who had been a taxi-cab driver; another who had been a school-teacher. Numbered among that exclusive hierarchy, the General Staff, were an insurance clerk, an architect's assistant, and a college cook. A coal miner, a railway signalman, a market gardener, and countless promoted private soldiers commanded battalions.

A few minutes later I rode off with my adjutant, young Hume-Logan, in the direction of Michelin Forge. My faithful orderly—a gigantic, inarticulate Lowland hind named Herriott—jogged along in rear of us. It was a distressing ride. A badly mangled terrain, restored to France and cultivation by Hindenburg's operatic retirement to the Siegfried line, was being overrun once more: and the plucky, industrious peasant population, which had been so busily employed for the past twelve months in rebuilding their villages and re-ploughing their emancipated soil behind the traditionally sure shield of a British trench line, found itself uprooted and cast forth for the second time. The panic-stricken flood of refugees had now subsided; but along the road we encountered sights which wrung the heart and tweaked the conscience—here, a pitiful little cart loaded with worldly possessions which hardly seemed worth salving; there, a tired woman struggling along a muddy roadside with her children

Respiciens frustra rura laresque sua

—as Ovid used to say in the Repetition Book. I felt somehow, perhaps unjustifiably, but none the less poignantly, that for once the British Army had failed in a trust.

But presently I saw something which inspired me. Down the road came a big elderly peasant woman wheeling a barrow, piled high with household furniture. (You have to invade French peasant territory very suddenly and very early in the morning indeed, if you expect to find so much as an orange-box left to sit down upon.) We looked down on the barrow as it passed.

"She doesn't seem to have forgotten anything, sir," observed Master Hume-Logan.

I gave Madame a respectful salute as we rode past. Her hard features never relaxed. Instead, she set down her barrow by the roadside, turned round, and started back in the same direction as ourselves: in fact, she outstripped our two horses, which were walking delicately amid the puddles.

"She seems to have forgotten something, after all," I said.

But I was wrong. She had forgotten nothing. Two hundred yards along the road stood another wheelbarrow. In it—mute, helpless, patient—lay a very old man. The old woman seized the shafts of this barrow and began to wheel it after the first. In so doing she met us again—and again I saluted her. We turned in our saddles and looked after her. At her original halting-place she deposited the second barrow as close to the side of the road as possible, turned again to the first, and trundled it forward, without a moment's rest, another hundred yards or so. When last we saw her she was coming back—grim, resolute, invincible—for the old man. She was France—La Patrie, incarnate!

At last we penetrated beyond what we may call the refugee zone, and arrived at Michelin Forge. There was little of it left save the western gable, which was still decorated by a tattered presentment of two pre-war friends, the Bibendum Twins. The low ridge of Primrose Hill defined the horizon about a mile or two ahead of us. It was nothing of a hill; it looked no higher than its namesake in distant "N.W." A quarter-of-a-mile away from us enemy shells were falling with Teutonic regularity of interval into a group of poor houses, clustered round a cross-roads. Over the ridge itself shrapnel was bursting intermittently. Away to our left a large canteen hut was burning fiercely: probably it had been cleared and set alight to save it from falling into enemy hands. To the right of the forge a battery of our Four-point-Five Howitzers was firing salvoes—securely dug in, and screened from aeroplane view by nets interwoven with leaves and twigs. When, to the great content of our horses, this performance ceased, I rode over and sought out the young officer in command. He had not shaved for a week, and his quite creditable beard was encrusted with mud.

"Yes, sir," he said, "I can tell you a little. The enemy are in force just beyond that low ridge—Primrose Hill. We are strafing them now. Our F.O.O. is somewhere in Fountain Keep, which is a strong point just behind the crest, with one or two observation posts stretching over it. He has direct observation; his last telephone-message said that the enemy were massing again behind their own second line. I haven't heard from him since: that's why I stopped firing. Something gone wrong with the works, I expect."

"What's the distance from here to the ridge?" I asked.

"Well, we are firing at a range of four thousand three hundred; but that, of course, reaches Boche territory. The range to the crest is about three thousand five hundred."

"I see; a brisk country walk of about two miles? I shall deploy here. Has the Boche been shelling the reverse slope of the hill at all?"

"Not lately. But yesterday afternoon, during a big attack, he put down a heavy barrage from end to end of it."

"Hum! That means that when he attacks again he will put down another heavy barrage. The sooner we get to the crest of that hill the better."

I was turning away, when the gunner said:

"There's a sunken road over there, sir, behind that hedge. It runs straight towards Primrose Hill for nearly a mile, and ends where the gradient really begins. If you followed that you could get shelter for a bit, and need not take open order quite so soon."

"That's good advice," I said. "I will have a look at it. Is there much going on in the air at present?"

"They set one of our sausage-balloons on fire early this morning. The observer got down all right in his parachute; but I fancy the heavies behind us are a bit in the dark about things, in consequence."

"How are the gas-works?"

"They put mustard down with their last barrage."

"Any aeroplanes been over?"

"One Boche machine came over at dawn, but our Archies hunted him back. This battery hasn't been spotted so far; but I expect we shall have to limber up and do another Hindenburg act presently; we have been doing nothing else for a week. A fortnight ago we were in rest billets about here, running about and playing football and going to the pictures! It's a bit thick!" he grunted ruefully, through his mask of dirt.

"We are to go in and stiffen the line ahead of us," I said. "You stay where you are, and back us! Here's my leading company coming up now. Good-morning!"

"Good-morning, sir, and good luck!"

The gunner hurried back to his camouflaged emplacements, and I turned to find Roy at my elbow.

"A message came through from brigade, sir," he said, "just after you left, to say that the enemy were massing heavily opposite Primrose Hill, and that we were to get up as soon as possible."

"Right! Let us have a look at a covered approach I have just heard about."

We crossed a meadow and looked over a hedge. Sure enough, at our very feet lay a deep cutting, following the line of the hedge towards Primrose Hill.

"Bring your company over here," I said, "and start them up this thoroughfare for all they're worth. Have the signallers arrived?"

"Yes, sir; they came with me."

"Tell the signal sergeant to establish telephone communication with Brigade Headquarters as quickly as he can." I turned to that faithful shadow, my adjutant. "Notify the other companies as they arrive—to this effect." I scribbled an order. "Explain to Major Wylie"—Major Wylie was my second in command—"that I have gone ahead with A Company. He will take charge of affairs here and maintain communication as far as possible from front to rear. Is that quite clear?"