Weasel Stark’s preliminary instructions, given in the candle-lit gloom of a dirty trench at 3 o’clock in the morning, confined themselves to few words. The problem consisted firstly, secondly and lastly in efficient communication: Peter, awake at dawn, got busy on it. As primary difficulty, he encountered Purves.

Said Purves yawning: “As I understand things, you and the Colonel are going off to Le Rutoire. I remain here as Adjutant to Major Lethbridge, who will command the Brigade. Communication will of course be arranged by Divisional Signals.”

Growled Peter, shivering in the misty dawn: “For God’s sake forget ‘Training Manual Signallers.’ How much wire have we got on the telephone cart?”

Purves sent for Corporal Waller. Corporal Waller said he thought they had four and a half miles of “D 3.” Peter pulled out his map: showed the Corporal what he wanted done. Purves sulked in the background.

At five-fifteen, Seabright and Pirbright, carrying a red drum between them, set out to find the Third Brigade. At ten minutes to six, a very sleepy battery commander of that unit protested down the new wire that he had no instructions as to taking orders from the Adjutant of another Brigade. At five minutes to six Weasel Stark—overhearing the long range wrangle—came to the phone and explained the situation at some length of blasphemy. Throughout breakfast, eaten squatting on damp clay, similar conversations took place.

At ten-thirty, Corporal Waller again telephoned. He had found the Second and First Brigades; was tapping into their wire. Also, he had nearly run out of wire....

“See that he gets some more,” rasped the Weasel to Purves. “You and I must be off, P.J.”

They made their way on foot, through sparse traffic, down a sodden road, towards the huge gutted farm. As they passed under the great gateway into the crowded courtyard, something exploded with an earth-shaking concussion.

“Six-inch How,” said the Weasel.

A very tall young subaltern, with carefully up-curled moustache and tiny bronze buttons on his loose tunic, came up; saluted the Colonel; and said, “Are you Colonel Stark, sir? ... The Artillery General won’t be here till two o’clock.” Then, to Peter, “Hallo, Jameson, haven’t seen you since you left.... Come and have a drink before lunch, won’t you, sir?”

Peter introduced “Sandiland of Impey’s” to his Colonel; and the young Guardee led downstairs to the foul cellar they had visited on the night of the twenty-fifth. It was no longer a charnel-house. Down the middle of it, a long table, spread with a white cloth, testified the imminence of lunch. About the table, talking quietly, stood other tall men, all in identical tunics, all with the same carefully up-curled moustaches, the same modulated voices.

They called each other by nicknames: “I say, Bunny, what about those smoke-bombs?” “My dear Trousers, don’t panic.” “Where’s the General?” “Is Muggins about?”

Sandiland produced gin and vermouth. Talk grew general.

Peter did not take long to recognize the peculiar social atmosphere. It was merely glorified Eton. Everybody trying their best to assume that facts didn’t exist; that emotions didn’t exist; that they knew little and cared less about the job they had at heart. It was over twelve years since Peter had lived in that particular atmosphere: but he sniffed it gratefully. His voice changed to it. He said, “Oh, really. Well, of course, I don’t know much about Gunnery,” knowing perfectly well that he knew considerably more about it than Sandiland—and, “It’s been very quiet round the batteries”—feeling that nobody had ever been quite so heavily shelled as the Fourth Southdown Brigade.

The Weasel, who happened to have been at Winchester before going on to Woolwich, felt suddenly and immensely superior to everybody on earth. For, on that point, all old English “public-school” men feel alike: which is what makes them at times so insufferable to outsiders. If a foreigner had asked any of the men in that cellar why he was fighting, the foreigner would have met with an incredulous lift of the eyebrow: that particular lift of the eyebrow which no foreigner understands; but which conveys—to one who can interpret—“My dear fellow, I was at Eton” (or Winchester, or Haileybury, or Harrow, or Radley or a hundred other foundations of that classical tradition which literary pacifists despise) “and one does, don’t you know, one just does.”

Luckily, there is no “education” at English “public-schools.” They merely train boys to be men.