For the next day or two Alf found life very hard. Bill's appetite for beer increased by geometrical progression; and Eustace's possible indignation at being constantly summoned merely to supply Private Grant with large bitters filled Alf with the liveliest apprehension. He felt that Bill—who, under the influence of unlimited liquor, was losing his moral sense—was not playing the game. He even descended to the level of intimidating Higgins, when he declared himself unprepared to risk the djinn's displeasure any longer, by the use of threats.

"Stop me beer, will yer?" said Grant. "Very well, then. We'll just see what the R.S.M. 'as to say about yer goin's on. 'E won't 'arf tell yer orf, I don't think!"

The regimental sergeant-major is ex officio the most terrible individual of a battalion from the point of view of the private soldier. True, the colonel is greater than he, in that from that officer the R.S.M. takes his orders; but the colonel—so far as Higgins and his peers were concerned—was a mere abstraction. The R.S.M. overshadowed him much as, in the eyes of unimaginative heathens, the priest overshadows the deity whose minister he is.

The R.S.M. of the 5th Middlesex Fusiliers, too, was a martinet of the most approved Regular Army type. His horizon was bounded on the one side by King's Regulations and on the other by the Manual of Military Law; and if he should become aware that a private of his battalion was so lost to the meaning of military discipline as to keep an unauthorized familiar spirit, the only possible result would be an explosion of wrath too terrible even to contemplate. Of this threat, therefore, Bill Grant made shameless use; and day by day he became more bibulous, Eustace more displeased, and Alf more miserable.

Alf racked his rather inadequate brains in the hope that Necessity would acknowledge her reputed offspring, Invention, and find him a way out of his troubles. But in the end Bill brought about his own undoing. He had a lively and, in his cups, a lurid imagination; and by giving it too free rein, he suggested to Alf a counter-threat.

"'Ow'd it be, ole f'ler," said Bill thickly, on the second day, after having kept Eustace almost continuously employed for several hours, "to 'ave old Eustish up again 'n tell 'im to turn the R.Esh.M. into a rhinosherush?"

To Alf this remark seemed not so much humorous as blasphemous; but it was also most illuminating. It opened his eyes to an aspect of his new powers which, left to himself, he would never have thought of.

"Look 'ere, Bill Grant!" he said, in suddenly confident tones. "That'll be about enough from you, see? Not another drop o' beer do you get till I says so. 'E's my spook, Eustace is; an' if I 'as any more o' yer nonsense I'll take an' tell 'im to change you into something. 'Ow'd yer like to be a—a transport mule, eh?"

Bill, suddenly smitten into something approaching sobriety, had no word to say. Alf, following up his advantage, continued his harangue.

"Not one drop more do yer get," he reiterated. "Eustace 'as been gettin' that fed up, I've been expectin' 'im to give me a month's notice any minute. An' nice we'd look if 'e started playin' monkey tricks on 'is own. All this beer business, you know; it ain't what 'e's been brought up to."

"'E can't do nothin', not without you tells 'im," said Bill, with a certainty he was far from feeling.

"Ah, an' 'ow do we know that? 'E might break loose an' then where'd we be? I've fair got the wind up, I tell yer. What we wanted to do is to 'umor the blighter."

"'Ow?"

"I dunno. 'Ow'd it be to give 'im something to do as 'e'd really enjoy—a decent job just to put 'im in a good temper again?"

"Buildin' palaces was 'is old line," mused Bill.

"Aye, but buildin' palaces 'ere would be just a blighted waste o' time," replied Alf, with strong common sense. "Can't you think o' nothin' else?"

Bill pondered deeply.

"Tell 'im," he suggested at last, "to bring us a girl. I'm fair sick for the sight of a pretty face."

"Dunno if that's much good. 'E mayn't care for females."

"Well, it is part of 'is peace-time job, anyway. Don't I tell yer 'e brought Aladdin a princess?"

"I'll try it. Any'ow, it'll be a change for 'im arter all that beer."

Eustace, it was obvious, approved of the idea. This new command was completely in accord with his ancient tradition.

"A maid fair as the dawn, great Master! It shall be so!" he said.

"Yes, and"—Alf suddenly remembered a recent abortive attempt to dally with a pretty French girl in an estaminet, and determined to run no further risks—"a English one."

"'Ere," put in Bill. "Make it two."

But the djinn had vanished.

"All right, Bill," Higgins said soothingly. "We'll send 'im back for one for you. Wonder what 'e'll bring for me—one of the 'Ippodrome chorus, I 'ope."

* * * * * * *

Lady Margaret Clowes and Isobel FitzPeter were walking together along the edge of the Row in Hyde Park. Margaret was wearing the workman-like, if unbeautiful, Red Cross uniform, for she was a hard-working V.A.D. at a private hospital. Isobel was a dainty vision, rivaling the lilies of the field.

"Did I tell you I'd had another letter from my cousin at the front?" asked Margaret.

"Which one?"

"Denis. Denis Allen. He sent you his kind regards. He's a nice boy. Do you remember him?"

"Hardly at all. He played cricket at Dunwater once or twice when I was a child. Really, Peggy, I'm getting fed up with men. Since those ridiculous papers took to publishing my photograph, every silly boy I've ever spoken to seems to want me to write to him."

"Why do you let them do it?" asked Margaret.

"I can't stop them writing to me, if they know my address."

"The papers, I mean. It's all very well calling them ridiculous, but you know that you give them every assistance."

"Rubbish!" Isobel's voice sounded scornful, but a sudden blush gave her away. Margaret, who had just come off duty after an unusually exacting spell, was rather out of patience with field-lilies. She returned to the attack.

"It isn't rubbish. And I don't think you ought to talk about the boys who write to you as you do. You make me very angry. After all, they are risking their lives, which is more than you can say."

"Well, how can I? I've often told you I'd love to go to the front," Isobel protested.

"Yes—in a spirit of vulgar curiosity, I suppose, just to have a look round. Iso, I could shake you, you're so self-satisfied, and so futile."

"Well, I think you're horribly rude. If you can't be more amusing, I'm going home. I've my part to learn for...."

"Oh—look! there's a horse bolting!" interrupted Margaret. She ran to the railings and watched breathlessly, while the mounted policeman on duty, who seemed to regard the whole affair as being in the day's work, caught the runaway and averted what might have been a very nasty accident. When she turned to speak to her companion, Isobel was no longer there.

"Temper!" thought Margaret to herself. "I suppose I was rather cross—but really Isobel's enough to try a saint sometimes. She must have gone off pretty quickly, too. However...."

Margaret was quite undisturbed—even a little amused at her friend's departure. She and Isobel often had fierce little quarrels, but these never had any lasting effect on their friendship. She would see Isobel to-morrow, and the whole thing would be forgotten. For the present, she continued her walk alone.

An old gentleman sitting on a seat near by, who had chanced to be looking at Isobel at the moment when Eustace (having awarded her the prize in his private beauty competition) swooped down and carried her off, was the only actual spectator of her disappearance. Doubting the evidence of his senses, he waited anxiously until Margaret should find out what had happened; he looked for her to scream or faint, or show her horror by some emotional upheaval; when she simply walked on as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, he was smitten with panic. He dashed home and went straight to bed.

* * * * * * *

Isobel's surprise and alarm when she found herself unexpectedly face to face with two tinhatted and unwashed Tommies in a subterranean cavern, lit only by a feeble gleam of daylight from the roof, was obvious; but she was too well bred to allow her emotions to master her. For a moment, conscious thought seemed to be suspended in her. Then, as the objects about her took shape, she decided that she must be dreaming.

At once all sense of fear left her. If it was only a dream, she argued to herself, it could not matter what happened to her. She waited with a kind of amused expectancy to see what turn events would take.

Alf and Bill, on the other hand, were not a little disturbed. They had realized at once that Eustace, in his ignorance, had committed an awful social solecism. Even the resourceful Bill's imagination boggled at the idea of explaining to this dainty vision how she came to be in her present surroundings. They stood before her, embarrassed and tongue-tied. Alf thought of recalling the djinn and telling him to take her straight back; but his very real and increasing fear of offending his familiar forbade. Besides, his visitor was very lovely, and filled his jaded masculine eye with a lively sense of satisfaction.

After a while the silence became oppressive and Isobel spoke.

"Where am I?" she asked. "Who are you?"

Bill, who had been making a surreptitious and feline toilet in the gloomy recesses of the dug-out, stepped forward and saluted.

"Don't be frightened, miss," he said soothingly, "but this 'ere's a dug-out in France, on the Western Front."

"That proves it," said Isobel to herself, with a certain satisfaction. "It is just a vivid dream. Perhaps it's telepathy or levitation or something. Anyway, the great point to remember is that I'm not really here at all."

The two men watched her anxiously. Both had expected her to be terrified at the news. Her air of unruffled serenity alarmed them, because neither could understand it.

"Now let me see," she continued her train of thought—"a few minutes ago, I was in the Park with Peggy—but perhaps I dreamt that, too. In fact I must have.... I don't remember going to bed, though.... Oh, well, it's no good worrying, it'll be all right when I wake up. A dug-out?" She echoed Bill's words uncertainly.

"Yes, miss. I'm very sorry, miss. If you please, it's all a mistake. We didn't mean no 'arm. If you'll just wait a minute, we'll send you back again to London quite all...."

But Isobel's usual spirit returned to her at this point. Whether this was dream or miracle, she determined to see it through.

"Send me back?" she said. "No, indeed you shan't! I've always longed to see the front. They won't let me in real life, and now you're trying to spoil it in a dream. If you only knew how I've tried to get leave to come over! It's too absolutely divine for anything—I wouldn't miss it for worlds. And I'm sure you'll be very kind and show me round, Mr...."

"'Iggins—Private Alfred 'Iggins, 5th Middlesex Fusiliers. An' this is me pal, Private Grant."

"Pleasetermeacher!" mumbled Bill, saluting.

"Well, you will, won't you?" Isobel smiled at them suddenly and beseechingly. Alf capitulated.

"'Appy to, miss," replied the infatuated youth. "What is it you wants to see?"

"Everything. I want to see just how you live and what you do. I want to see a shell burst, and—oh, everything."

"Better not bother with shells, miss," said Bill grimly; "one might 'it you."

"Oh, but that doesn't matter in a dream! Is this the way up?"

She climbed up the steep and difficult staircase, gallantly assisted by Alf. Bill followed gloomily, his mind busy with wondering first what would happen if a stray long-distance shell did injure Isobel, and second what Sergeant Lees or any of his superiors would say if he saw them.

The same thought struck Alf as they reached the trench above.

"Company 'Edquarters is up there," he said, with a jerk of the thumb. "We'd best go the other way."

Isobel, making shameless play with her eyes, laid a hand for one moment on Alf's arm.

"What is a Company Headquarters?" she asked. "I want to see it."

A subtle, faint perfume reached Alf's nostrils and thrilled him all through. Now that she was in the full light of day, he could take in her exquisite quality. Her clothes, though obviously expensive, were too plain to suit Bill's untutored eye, but Alf, possessing by some queer freak of nature an unexpectedly true taste, saw in her the apotheosis of all that was most admirable in women. By all the laws of probability his tastes should have been for bright colors and nodding feathers, but such decorations left him cold, while this girl struck him dumb. She was simply the embodiment of his ideal.

"Now I'm here," she went on, "I want to see for myself just what you poor men have to put up with. How awful it must be to live in a trench like this. And can't you show me a German?"

She smiled up into Alf's face.

That smile galvanized him as before, into a display of rash gallantry.

"So you shall, miss," he said. "Just step along the trench 'ere, and we'll show you all we can."

Isobel surveyed the trench doubtfully and then looked down at her delicately shod feet.

"Couldn't we walk along the top?" she asked. "It all seems so quiet and peaceful—surely there'd be no danger. We must be a long way from the Germans, aren't we?"

"It's not Fritz, miss," interposed Bill earnestly. "It's our sergeant. 'E mustn't see us with you. A fair terror, 'e is."

"Oh," said Isobel easily, feeling that she could deal with these dream-people of hers as she pleased. "I'll see you don't get into trouble. This is such an opportunity—I mustn't waste it ... here's a flight of steps, if you'll give me your hand again and...."

She reached the top and her voice ceased as suddenly and uncannily as a voice ceases when it is cut off in the middle of a word on the telephone. She stood staring dumbly across the old No-Man's-Land, making in her dainty furs the strangest picture that battle-scarred strip of land had seen. Alf and Bill, one on each side of her, gazed, too.

"There ain't much to see 'ere, I'm afraid, miss," said the latter apologetically. According to his lights, Bill spoke the truth. To his accustomed eyes there was nothing to be seen worthy of special mention; but to Isobel—pitch-forked straight from her sheltered, mindless life into the very heart of the battle area—it was far otherwise.

Her first feeling was that her dream had suddenly turned to horrible nightmare. Surely nothing but distorted fancy could have produced the scene before her eyes! It was as though the earth had been some stricken monster, which had stiffened into death in the very midst of the maddened writhings of its last agony. For the most part it was a land without landmarks—a land featureless, but torn and tortured, poisoned and pulverized, where the eye could find no certain resting-place and the mind no relief. On every side lay the same desolate waste, pockmarked with shell-holes, each of which was half filled with stagnant and stinking water, on the surface of which was an oozing and fetid scum. Here and there the ragged remains of a barbed-wire entanglement stood out above the general welter; here and there—but very rarely—a few scattered stones indicated where once had stood a cottage; here and there fluttered decayed rags of blue or khaki or field-gray.... Cartridge-cases, bits of equipment, bully-beef tins—all kinds of abandoned rubbish were scattered about.

On the right ran the main road—the one feature of the whole pitiful panorama which still retained some individuality. Once it had been famous for its avenue of tall trees. Those trees still flanked the roadway, but now the tallest of them was a ravaged stump standing a bare four feet above the ground, and the same gun-fire that had smitten them down had smashed the road itself into a sickly yellow pulp.

Once, no doubt, the road had run between fields green with grass or young corn; but now it seemed to Isobel beyond imagining that life could ever again come near to it. Even the vilest weed might shudder to grow on earth's dead body, mangled and corrupted and shamefully exposed....

Alf's voice broke the silence.

"It's a bit dull 'ere, miss," he said, with cheerful bathos. "There ain't much to show yer. But see yon mound over there on the left? That was a church once, that was. But you can 'unt all day and never find nothing of the buildin', all except the church bell;—on'y it's too far to walk in them boots. One of our C.T.'s—communication trenches, I should say—runs right underneath it."

Isobel gave no answer, unless a sound something between a gulp and a sob can be so described. Depths seemed to be stirring in her nature that she had not hitherto been conscious of possessing. She felt mean and small and bitterly humbled. She had desired to see the front out of mere heedless curiosity, as a child might wish to visit a slaughter-house. She had had her desire, and her eyes had seen unimaginable horrors—horrors which had become so much a commonplace to the men who passed their lives in this shambles that they apologized for its lack of greater horrors. Compared with what they had seen, there was "nothing much" here for her curious eye. Only a strip of ground fought over a month before—its dead buried, its wounded carried away to a smiling land where such as she were flattered and praised in the public press because out of their useless lives they deigned to devote an occasional hour to those same wounded.

A sudden horror came over her lest she should see a dead man. She covered her eyes with her hands and gave a convulsive shudder.

"Don't—don't take me over there!" she said, and climbed down the steps again into the trench.

Bill and Alf, much concerned to understand what could possibly have upset their visitor, were on the point of following, when there was a sound of squelching mud, and a figure appeared round the angle of the trench.

"Lumme!" said Bill's voice in an appalled whisper. "The orficer!" With one accord the two Tommies turned and fled as their platoon commander approached.

Lieutenant Allen had been tramping about all the afternoon, reconnoitering the approaches to the front line in case of trouble. Muddy and hungry and dog-tired, he was now plodding mechanically back to his hole in the ground, while his thoughts wandered vaguely and wistfully to home and his people—and Isobel. At the sound of Bill's whisper he looked up and stopped dead. Clearly his nerves must be beginning to give way, for he seemed to see the subject of his thoughts standing before him in the trench.

"My God!" he exclaimed—"Isobel!"

She stared at the muddy figure before her for a long moment. Then recognition dawned slowly in her eyes.

"You!" she said at last, and her voice seemed to Allen to hold in it all that he most longed for in the world.

"Isobel! am I mad or dreaming?"

"Oh," she cried, with a sob—"it's a dream. It must be a dream. If it isn't, I can't bear it. It's too awful."

The sight of a face she knew had added to the scene the last touch of horror for her. She stood there, the tears glistening in her eyes, passionately pitiful, passionately lovely. The pretty fool of The Tatler pictures had ceased to be, and this glorious woman had risen like the phoenix from her ashes. Denis held his breath for fear his vision would fade....

Meanwhile, the two Tommies had regained the shelter of their dug-out with more speed than grace.

"Quick!" said Bill, in a trembling voice. "'Urry up, or she'll give us away, for sure. What a mug you was to tell 'er our names."

With a feverish hand, Alf rubbed the Button....

Denis Allen started and rubbed his eyes.

"Isobel!" he said once more. But she was gone.

* * * * * * *

Denis leaned against the side of the trench for support. His heart was thumping against his ribs, and his throat had a strained, parched feeling. He was very badly scared.

Strange things do happen to men at the front; small hallucinations, induced by the ceaseless strain on the nerves and senses, are of common occurrence. The eyes play queer tricks sometimes on sentry-go, so that a tuft of grass becomes a lurking sniper. Allen himself could remember one occasion when he had actually seen German infantry advancing stealthily to the attack, and had given the alarm; only to be severely told off by an irate Company Commander for having interrupted his evening meal for nothing.

But this was different. This way madness lay. He had not known that his nerves had reached this state; he must pull himself together, get back at once to his dug-out and sleep. If he climbed out of the trench and went across the open, he would cut off a big corner; accordingly he did so. Just at this moment a German battery saw fit to drop a long-range shell at a venture into the British rear lines. It exploded only a few yards from Denis. He felt a tremendous thump in the chest, and rolled over, coughing and fighting for breath. Then a black curtain seemed to shut down over his eyes, and for a few moments he lost consciousness. Then he was hazily aware of voices, and a hand loosening his collar, fiddling about with his shirt and finally applying a field-dressing to a wound high up in his chest. He moved convulsively.

"Lie still, sir," said a voice. "It's Private 'Iggins, sir. Private Grant's gone for stretcher-bearers. You'll be all right, sir—it's only a little 'ole. Just lie still."

By the time the stretcher arrived he had more or less come to himself. He could see once more, and he was conscious only of two things, namely, that his feet were horribly, cruelly cold, and that he was done with the front for a time. Slowly and gently he was carried across the rough ground to the battalion aid-post, where the Battalion M.O. received him.

"Hullo, Sniggles!" said Denis weakly.

"Well, young man," answered Sniggles, enthusiastically cutting all Denis's expensive clothing to pieces with a large pair of shears. "Let's see what they've done to you. Ah!"

He removed the bandage. Denis listened for his verdict, in dread lest his wound should be serious enough to be fatal, or not serious enough to give him his heart's desire.

"Shall I be all right?" he asked at last.

"Think so, old man."

"Good. Is it a Blighty one all right?"

"Sniggles" smiled at the eagerness in his tone.

"A Blighty one? I should think it is. A long holiday from the Army for you, my lad."

Denis gave one grin of pure happiness, and then the haziness came over him again. He lay for some time waiting for the ambulance. Occasionally a dim form bent over him; once he heard the colonel's voice speaking his name. For a second or two his brain cleared, and he understood a word or two.

" ... sorry to lose him, but he's earned a rest...."

Next, he felt himself lifted and placed, still on his stretcher, in a motor-ambulance. Most of the officers seemed to be standing about, to see him off. There was a chorus of "Good-by, old man—and good luck!" He gave a feeble smile in return, and then his journey began.