“Beer” Battery welcomed Peter with cordiality if not with effusion. The clean-shaven Sandiland ordered Quarter-master Sergeant (ex rough-rider) Murgatroyd to “snaffle a tent next time he saw one lyin’ about.” Pettigrew,—cheeks redder, eyes bluer, spirits higher, than even in Shoreham days—twinkled a “Wait till we’ve put you through it, P.J.” Charlie Straker held out a big hand, and stuttered: “T-thought you w-wouldn’t stand being Adjutant much longer.” Lindsay, newly-arrived junior member of the Mess—a raw-boned raw-voiced Aberdonian boy, with a budding moustache, and a passion for what he termed “Obsairvation Duties”—immediately offered to point out some “verra interesting features of the ground”; but being informed by Straker that “P.J. knew the ground a damn sight better than he did,” subsided into disciplinary silence.

Peter himself, once he grew accustomed to the restricted viewpoint of a battery-subaltern (who sees very little of war except his own particular job), lost a little of his cafard by the change of duties.

The open air life suited him, improved his temper. He felt further than ever removed from the annoyances of business. His by-weekly letters to Patricia, busy with the furnishing of Sunflowers, grew almost sentimental.

On the whole, he liked his new work better than the old. It held more excitement, less routine. During his first duty-spell alone at the “O. Pip” on Hill 63, he spotted a party of three Huns laying telephone-wires in the open; and managed to burst his shell exactly in their faces. The thrill of it—a thrill only to be compared with tiger shooting from an elephant howdah—kept Peter’s eye to his telescope for the rest of the day. And his two spells “in the trenches,” though spent in great peace at the sand-bagged Battalion Headquarters, also gave him a fresh experience.

But it was not only the freedom from responsibility and the excitement of fresh duties which appealed to Peter. Conway, with his usual luck, had tossed for—and of course won—the only comfortable habitation in the valley: a still intact though slightly battered farm-house, in which—equally of course—he had re-established his “poker-school.” Lodden disapproved—but came nightly. Bromley, still in touch with his old Brigade, was learning—an expensive process. They played in a room reduced to cabin-size by pit-props, sandbags and nine-by-two’s (the Army’s designation for its standard plank): constantly interrupted by the buzz of Conway’s telephone, and once by a misconceived S.O.S. call which sent every one scurrying back through intermittent shell-fire to their spurting cannons.

Altogether, not an unpleasant existence! Indeed, during that first easy fortnight only one thing troubled Peter: his health. Somehow or other, since the gas-attack, he had developed a little spitty cough, usually painless, but occasionally stabbing—the tiniest pin-prick—just below the heart.

“You ought to see the Doc. about that bark of yours, P.J.,” said Sandiland one evening, as they sat smoking in the Armstrong hut of batten and canvas which Q.M.S. Murgatroyd had snaffled for the Mess.

“Can’t stand Laurillard,” growled Peter—the pain had stabbed twice. “Besides, he’ll only tell me to leave off smoking cigars. Let’s go and get those five hundred francs back from Conway.”