To Peter, sitting alone at his wooden table in the bare Orderly Room Hut one evening, monthly list of promotions before him, cloud of cigar-smoke round his head, came Bombardier Pitman—clean-shaven, lantern-jawed, destined to succeed Sergeant Barber, whose duties would take him to the Base once the Brigade reached France, in his clerkdom.

“There’s an Infantry Officer asking for you, sir,” said the Bombardier in broadest Yorkshire.

“Ask him to come in.”

There entered Peabody of the Chalkshires, grin on brown face.

“My word, P.J.—you are a swell.”

“Think so?” Peter looked up from his list.

“Rather.” Peabody threw cap and cane on the bare floor; drew himself up a chair; lit a cigarette. “I thought you’d like to hear about Locksley—beg his pardon, Locksley-Jones, Mister Locksley-Jones. No longer ‘Captain and Adjutant,’ you will observe.”

Bromley, just back from the Larkhill training course, lounged through the door in time to hear part of the last sentence.

“What’s that about Locksley?”

“Got the boot,” said Peabody laconically.

“How?” asked the two Gunners simultaneously.

“Nobody quite knows. One day he was in the Orderly Room—and the next, he just wasn’t. Of course, there have been heaps of rumours.... The C.O. gave us one of his ‘pi-jaws’ yesterday—you know the way the old man lisps when he lectures—all about ‘the honour of the Regiment.’ I think he knows pretty well what Locksley has been doing, because he said—rather decent of him I thought: ‘Of course I understand some of you have had a good deal to put up with’ ... I believe,” Peabody shook his young head, “that there must have been something wrong with the Battalion accounts.”

“Then he ought to have been court-martialled!”

Bromley nodded confirmation of Peter’s epitaph on Locksley’s career. “Come up to the Mess and have a drink, kid,” he added to the Infantryman. The three walked out; up the steep dry slope of turf to the Mess Hut.

Various officers were disposed about the big deal-boarded room: Lodden, in front of the cold stove, was cursing to Billy Williams about the Lusitania—“Oh I dunno,” purred the big Major, “What do you expect of Germans?” “Brat” Archdale and “Monkey face” lounged in two huge arm-chairs, sipping manfully at their vermouths: Merrilees, in another chair, studied Italy’s declaration of war in the Daily Chronicle with wrinkled brows. From the officers’ huts across the grass, came the alternating buzz of two telephone transmitters—Conway and Purves talking to each other in Morse.

“I say,” announced Peabody shyly, when the three had settled down to their drinks, “what I came over for was this. Slattery—you remember him—he’s our new Adj.—wants you two to come over and dine at our Mess tomorrow. Now that Locksley’s gone....”

He let the prepared speech trail off into silence.

“But what about the C.O.?” asked Bromley.

“I think”—Peabody very nearly blushed—“it was the C.O. who suggested it to Slattery.”

Next evening when they rode over—the Chalkshire Mess was a bare six hundred yards away, but as Gunners it became the pair to arrive mounted. Private Haddock, in full khaki and equipment, stood sentry in the roadway; banged hand against rifle-stock, and beamed ecstatically as they slid from their horses. Arkwright, three stars on his arm, schoolmaster stoop more pronounced than ever, met them outside the hut; led them in as an Ambassador conducting distinguished foreigners.

And somewhat as foreigners they were received; shyly by Colonel Andrews, unemotionally by Simcox, bluffly by Major Mosely. There was a feeling of stiffness in the air. Outwardly the mere entertainment of two junior subalterns; inwardly, the ceremony betokened reconciliation, an acknowledgment that the 10th Chalkshires had a debt to pay, was paying it.

Nobody mentioned Locksley; no one proposed a toast; but all the faces down the two long tables seemed conscious of a special occasion....

A great white moon burned over the tin roofs of the hutments as the two mounted their horses; walked them slowly across the sleeping camp.

“I always said”—Bromley broke silence gravely—“that, except for Locksley, there was nothing wrong with the old Chalkshires. They’re a jolly fine crowd—now. And when we do go out....”

“If we ever get out,” from Peter.

“They’ll give a good account of themselves. Curious, isn’t it, that if it hadn’t been for that fellow, we might still be with ‘B’ Company. Both Captains, perhaps.”

They dismounted; led their horses—groom following—down the hill.

“Did you realize when we transferred,” asked Peter, voicing a thought that had just arisen for the first time in his mind, “that one would be more comfortable, safer perhaps, in the Gunners?”

“No.”

“More did I. But all those chaps seemed to think so. I wonder if it’s true.”

“I should doubt it.”

Both were destined to remember that conversation, in the very near future, at the Disaster of Loos!