A man and his wife can occasionally (if they are very circumspect) conceal matrimonial disturbances from their servants: but, in a Regiment, the slightest tension between officers is known to the lower ranks almost at the moment of its occurrence. Mess-waiters gossip; batmen gossip; the Sergeant’s Mess gossips: between a parade and a parade, twelve hundred men are taking sides in the quarrel of two. And the Chalkshires were no ordinary peace-time regiment: volunteers to a man; of different social gradings but almost every one a Londoner; intensely curious about their new profession; it did not take them long to discover—“B” Company especially—how matters stood between 2nd Lieutenant Harold Bromley and Captain and Adjutant Locksley-Jones.

By the time that the late-November rains (and various hints in the Press about “the scandalous state of some of our Camps”) drove the Chalkshires out of the Shoreham slime into billets at Worthing Green, a suburb of Worthing-on-Sea, bets were being freely laid (in beer) on the result.

“Bet any of you,” said Private Longstaffe, who had been a bookmaker’s clerk before he joined, “that old Bromley downs the blighter before we’re a month older.” He looked furtively round the snuggery of the “Dog and Bun.”

“Well, per’aps he will; and per’aps he won’t,” said Peter’s batman Priestley—an old soldier with curling moustaches and a roving eye. “Anyway, I ’ope ‘P.J.’ won’t go if Bromley has to.”

“P.J.’s orlright.” The verdict came from a little man in the corner. “’E’s orlright: though ’e does damn and swear like ’ell. My sister, she works for ’im up in the Brixton Road. ‘’Addick,’ ’e says to me the other dai—you know the wai ’e ’as of cockin’ ’is cigar up in the corner of his mouf,—‘’Addick,’ ’e says, ‘’aven’t I told you a ’undred bloodstained times not to crorss your bloodstained bootlices?’ ‘You certainly ’ave, sir,’ I says. ‘Then why the ’ell,’ says ’e, ‘don’t you do what you’re told?’ ’Ee don’t know I know ’e’s got a factory....” This secret knowledge seemed to give Private Haddock a peculiar satisfaction.

Conversation meandered on.