Next morning,—Stark pre-occupied, Peter rather sleepy, Purves and the Doctor swapping jokes with Horrocks the newly-joined veterinary officer (a horsy over-toothed young man in white breeches and enormous spurs)—the Headquarters breakfasted in sunshine at a trestle-table under the vine-leaves: and at half-past ten, rode out across the vast cobbled yard, through the red gates, right-handed towards Hinges, left-handed towards BÉthune.

Behind them—Mr. Black prancing proudly on a thin chestnut mare, Lodden cursing as usual, Torrington drooping in his saddle, the men smoking at ease—came the horses and carts of the Headquarters Staff, the guns and ammunition waggons of Batteries A and B.

“This is hardly the conventional idea of going into action for the first time,” drawled Purves, trotting up beside Peter and the Colonel.

The Weasel jerked up red head from the map on his saddle-peak: “What did you expect, young man?” he asked crisply.

“Oh, I don’t know, sir. Gun-fire on the skyline, I suppose; and patrols riding forward to scout the way....”

“Well, suppose you trot on; and see if the level-crossing’s blocked or not.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Can’t ride for toffee,” commented the Colonel, as his Orderly Officer clattered forward.

They rode on, through clean sunshine, past clean white houses, across the railway lines; emerged on the main road; swung left. Soon they could see the roofs of BÉthune in front of them.

A long train backed slowly across the road. The column halted. The train went on; likewise the column. Now they were in the outskirts of the town.

Down the untidy street, trotting slowly towards them over the greasy pavÉ, came a young Staff officer, very gorgeous of boot and tab, rifled groom trotting behind him: a Staff officer who saluted the Weasel with a fine flourish, and said:

“Excuse me, sir, but this is the fourth Southdown Brigade, isn’t it?”

“It is. Half of it anyway. What do you want with it?”

“Can I speak to your Adjutant, sir?”

“Certainly. Speak to the whole damn column if you like. Here, Mr. Black, pass down the word for the Adjutant.”

“Colonel wants the Adjutant. Colonel wants the Adjutant.” The words went dwindling down the line.

A minute or two later our Mr. Jameson clattered up on Little Willie, looked at the face under the black-peaked hat, and said, “Good God, it’s Francis. Where on earth did you spring from?”

Peter introduced his cousin, a little gaunter, a little browner, but immaculate as ever, to the Colonel. The three rode on, talking together. Soldiers and rare civilians stared incuriously at them from the narrow pavements; lorries rumbled by; an occasional dispatch-rider, phutting past, disturbed the horses.

“How did you find me so quickly?” asked Peter, preliminary greetings over.

“You wrote me when you sent on,” imperceptible pause, “those letters, that you were transferring to the R.A. And of course we knew the moment you landed in France.”

“Who’s we?”

“G.H.Q.,” said Francis casually.

“My aunt, you are a swell. Why didn’t you write and tell me where you were? I haven’t heard from you for months.”

Francis explained that he had only just officially joined Intelligence, that his uniform had been bought a week since in Paris, that he was attached to the First Corps....

“What have you been doing since March?” asked Peter.

“Oh, various jobs I’m not supposed to talk about....”

“Then don’t talk about ’em, young man,” put in the Weasel.

“And why are you attached to the First Corps?”

“To interrogate prisoners after this new show.”

Purves, very affairÉ, came trotting up to the Colonel. “Don’t we turn off to the right here, sir?”

“We do, my Purves, we do.” They rolled off the main street into a quiet square; threaded their way southwards out of the town, through market gardens, into flat cultivated country.

“Where are you bound for?” asked Francis.

Peter pulled out his map, pointed to a little green patch, “Batteries are going to that wood. We’re marching up by daylight to Annequin. See that little house at the end of the railway, just under Fosse Nine? That’s us.”

“Square F 25?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I must be getting back,” said Francis. “I’ll come and look you up one afternoon.”

“Why not come to dinner the day after tomorrow,” invited the Colonel.

“I’d like to very much, sir. About half-past seven. Very good, sir. Good-bye, sir. So long, Peter”; and Captain Francis Gordon, wheeling his horse, trotted back into the town.

Headquarters marched on, dropping the batteries outside Verquigneul; till they came to the hundred-foot slag-cone of Fosse Six; and on, across yet another railway. Now they saw, for the first time, their own sausage balloons, hanging directly above them, and—very far away and tiny—the flash and slow puff of anti-aircraft shell bursting round an invisible ’plane. The men, newcomers all, pointed to the marvel, chattered about it. “Wonder if they got him. Not they. There he goes.” The few old soldiers by the roadside took no notice.

And so they came, down a rutty road black with slag, past a shattered wall of red-brick, under the vast shadow of Fosse Nine. The Weasel held up his whip, and the column halted.

“It’s quite all right, sir. The position’s well under cover,” said Peter.

“I know that,” snapped Stark, “but it’s no use letting these fellows get into careless habits. Tell ’em to dismount, Purves. And then go along and explain the danger of halting at a cross-roads. Have ’em come up two at a time. You’ve selected your forward wagon-line, I suppose.”

“Yes, sir. Just behind the Fosse.”

“Good lad. Don’t keep more than six horses there, though. Now you, Jameson, come along with me. Never mind your precious Little Willie. Jelks’ll look after him.”

They dismounted; walked forward. On their left stood the half of a red house, riven with shell-fire. (“Cross-roads!” commented the Colonel): three hundred yards in front, screened by a fold in the ground from enemy observation, rose a few tall trees; thereunder, heaps of white clay, the disused French gun-pits already echoing to the tools of battery fatigue parties.

From a sunken hedge on their right, came a double report, the flash and smoke of a piece discharging. Involuntarily, P.J. started.

“Four point seven,” explained Stark. “Used to call ’em Long Toms in South Africa. Let’s go and see if your pal Caroline’s got that omelette she promised us.”

They turned off to their left—Stark casting a quick eye across the field below the Fosse at the men already unlimbering the telephone-waggon—came to a low shuttered house,—first of three on the road; knocked on a white door in the wall.

“Bon jour, mon Colonel. Vous arrivez tÔt.” A thick-set peasant-wench, neither uncomely nor over-cleanly, led them through a draggled garden under a rusty iron-work arbour towards the house.

“Et l’omelette, ma petite?” The Weasel spoke French perfectly, with only the slightest trace of accent.

“Sere prÊte dans dix minutes, mon Colonel.”

They passed through the bare narrow hall into a shuttered room, empty of furniture save for a huge table. Through one wall, heavily shored with great balks of timber, a narrow doorway led to the cellars below.

“If we were Germans,” remarked Stark, unbuckling his belt, throwing it crashing on the table, “we should sleep down there; the family upstairs. As it is....” He left the sentence unfinished, implying the Englishman’s usual contempt for his own chivalry.

Monsieur le patron, a stubble-cheeked gaffer in shirt and trousers, shambled in; hoped they would be comfortable; shambled out again. Followed, hilariously, Doctor Carson.

“Well,” he said, in broadest Belfast, “I’m a proud man this day. We’re in action at last.”

Purves arrived; and the mess-box; Gunner Horne the cook, looking rather less cleanly than usual; Peter’s batman, Garton; and the Colonel’s Bombardier Michael, a nervous little fellow, clean-shaven, who had been a footman in private life; finally Caroline with an enormous omelette, a bottle of nameless wine....

“Make ’emselves damn comfortable, I notice,” growled Lodden that evening, as he left Headquarters for the gun-pits at the foot of the field below the house.

“Wish I were on the ruddy Headquarters,” groused Gunner Mucksweat, heaving against the reluctant wheel of “B” Battery’s No. 2 gun. “Me too,” answered his mate, as the axles jammed in the narrow doorway of the pit.

But Mr. Stanley Purves, as he watched from his upstairs window, the endless upsoaring of VÉry candles; as he heard the occasional crackle of a two-miles distant machine-gun; wished by the Lord Apollo and many other classical deities that he were back at Balliol. For it seemed to Mr. Stanley Purves’ imagination that every lurid flash on the far horizon must be a gun directed unerringly at his personal self: and he envied P.J., who slept soundly and unimaginatively on his camp-bed in the corner of their bare and unprotected sleeping-room.

Which paragraph may serve to explain Stanley Purves’ subsequent vogue—among elderly civilians—as a soldier-poet of the let-me-like-a-hero-fall category!