On the Tuesday a board of doctors passed Jim Denver fit for General Service, having first given him the option of a month's home service if he liked. Two days after he turned up at the depÔt of his regiment, where he found men in various stages of convalescence—light duty, ordinary duty at home, and fit to go out like himself. One or two he knew, and most of them he didn't. There were a few old regular officers and a large number of very new ones—who were being led in the way they should go.

But there is little to tell of the time he spent waiting to go out. This is not a diary of his life—not even an account of it; it is merely an attempt to portray a state of mind—an outlook on life engendered by war, in a man whom war had caused to think for the first time.

And so the only incidents which I propose to give of his time at the depÔt is a short account of a smoking concert he attended and a conversation he had the following day with one Vane, a stockbroker. The two things taken individually meant but little: taken together—well, the humour was the humour of the Land of Topsy Turvy. A delicate humour, not to be appreciated by all: with subtle shades and delicate strands and bloody brutality woven together....

A sudden silence settled on the gymnasium; the man at the piano turned round so as to hear better; the soldiers sitting astride the horse ceased laughing and playing the fool.

At a table at the end of the big room, seen dimly through the smoke-clouded atmosphere, sat a group of officers, while the regimental sergeant-major, supported by other great ones of the non-commissioned rank near by, presided over the proceedings.

Occasionally a soldier-waiter passed behind the officers' chairs, armed with a business-like bottle and a box of dangerous-looking cigars; and unless he was watched carefully he was apt to replenish the liquid refreshment in a manner which suggested that he regarded soda as harmful in the extreme to the human system. Had he not received his instructions from that great man the regimental himself?

For an hour and a half the smoking concert had been in progress; the Brothers Bimbo, those masterly knock-about comedians, had given their performance amid rapturous applause. In life the famous pair were a machine-gun sergeant and a cook's mate; but on such gala occasions they became the buffoons of the regiment. They were the star comics: a position of great responsibility and not to be lightly thought of. An officer had given a couple of rag-time efforts; the melancholy corporal in C Company had obliged with a maundering tune of revolting sentimentality, and one of A Company scouts had given a so-called comic which caused the padre to keep his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, though at times his mouth twitched suspiciously, and made the colonel exclaim to his second in command in tones of heartfelt relief: "Thank Heavens, my wife couldn't come!" Knowing his commanding officer's wife the second in command agreed in no less heartfelt voice.

But now a silence had settled on the great room: and all eyes were turned on the regimental sergeant-major, who was standing up behind the table on which the programme lay, and behind which he had risen every time a new performer had appeared during the evening, in order to introduce him to the assembly. There are many little rites and ceremonies in smoking concerts....

This time, however, he did not inform the audience that Private MacPherson would now oblige—that is the mystic formula. He stood there, waiting for silence.

"Non-commissioned officers and men"—his voice carried to every corner of the building—"I think you will all agree with me that we are very pleased to see Colonel Johnson and all our officers here with us to-night. It is our farewell concert in England: in a few days we shall all be going—somewhere; and it gives us all great pleasure to welcome the officers who are going to lead us when we get to that somewhere. Therefore I ask you all to fill up your glasses and drink to the health of Colonel Johnson and all our officers."

A shuffling of feet; an abortive attempt on the part of the pianist to strike up "For he's a jolly good fellow" before his cue, an attempt which died horribly in its infancy under the baleful eye of the sergeant-major; a general creaking and grunting and then—muttered, shouted, whispered from a thousand throats—"Our Officers." The pianist started—right this time—and in a second the room was ringing with the well-known words. Cheers, thunderous cheers succeeded it, and through it all the officers sat silent and quiet. Most were new to the game; to them it was just an interesting evening; a few were old at it; a few, like Jim, had been across, and it was they who had a slight lump in their throats. It brought back memories—memories of other men, memories of similar scenes....

At last the cheering died away, only to burst out again with renewed vigour. The colonel was standing up, a slight smile playing round his lips, the glint of many things in his quiet grey eyes. To the second in command, a sterling soldier but one of little imagination, there came for the first time in his life the meaning of the phrase, "the windows of the soul." For in the eyes of the man who stood beside him he saw those things of which no man speaks; the things which words may kill.

He saw understanding, affection, humour, pain; he saw the pride of possession struggling with the sorrow of future loss; he saw the desire to test his creation struggling with the fear that a first test always brings; he saw visions of glorious possibilities, and for a fleeting instant he saw the dreadful abyss of a hideous failure. Aye, for a few moments the second in command looked not through a glass darkly, but saw into the unplumbed depths of a man who had been weighed in the balance and not found wanting; a man who had faced responsibility and would face it again; a man of honour, a man of humour, a man who knew.

"My lads," he began—and the quiet, well-modulated voice reached every man in the room just as clearly as the harsher voice of the previous speaker—"as the sergeant-major has just said, in a few days we shall be sailing for—somewhere. The bustle and fulness of your training life will be over; you will be confronted with the real thing. And though I do not want to mar the pleasure of this evening in any way or to introduce a serious tone to the proceedings, I do want to say just one or two things which may stick in your minds and, perhaps, on some occasion may help you. This war is not a joke; it is one of the most hideous and ghastly tragedies that have ever been foisted on the world; I have been there and I know. You are going to be called on to stand all sorts of discomfort and all sorts of boredom; there will be times when you'd give everything you possess to know that there was a picture-palace round the corner. You may not think so now, but remember my words when the time comes—remember, and stick it.

"There will be times when there's a sinking in your stomach and a singing in your head; when men beside you are staring upwards with the stare that does not see; when the sergeant has taken it through the forehead and the nearest officer is choking up his life in the corner of the traverse. But—there's still your rifle; perhaps there's a machine-gun standing idle; anyway, remember my words then, and stick it.

"Stick it, my lads, as those others have done before you. Stick it, for the credit of the regiment, for the glory of our name. Remember always that that glory lies in your hands, each one of you individually. And just as it is in the power of each one of you to tarnish it irreparably, so is it in the power of each one of you to keep it going undimmed. Each one of us counts, men"—his voice sank a little—"each one of us has to play the game. Not because we're afraid of being punished if we're found out, but because it is the game."

He looked round the room slowly, almost searchingly, while the arc light spluttered and then burnt up again with a hiss.

"The Regiment, my lads—the Regiment." His voice was tense with feeling. "It is only the Regiment that counts."

He raised his glass, and the men stood up:

"The Regiment."

A woman sobbed somewhere in the body of the gym., and for a moment, so it seemed to Denver, the wings of Death flapped softly against the windows. For a moment only—and then:

"Private Mulvaney will now oblige."

Jim walked slowly home. He remembered just such another evening before his own battalion went out. Would those words of the Colonel have their effect: would some white-faced man stick it the better for the remembrance of that moment: would some machine-gun fired with trembling dying hands take its toll? Perhaps—who knows? The ideal of the soldier is there—the ideal towards which the New Armies are led. Thus the first incident....