And on the third evening, the Brigade wound slowly across the bridge, past the lake and under the fir trees, till their wheels raised the soft dust along the path road to Deepcut Barracks.

Alice and Patricia and Peter’s children watched them as they came. To the children, it was all excitement; they waved to the horsemen, to the dusty limber-gunners trudging the little slope. Better than lead soldiers, those real playthings! But to the two women, the end seemed very near.

Each in her own way; grave, the one—with her white frocked daughters beside her; moist-eyed the other—thinking of her child to be—they resented this new world, that would so soon tear their men-folk from them, leaving nothing to hope for save the comfort of pencilled letters, the joy of snatched “leaves,” and always, defying comfort, lurking behind joy, fear—the fear of the telegram!