p. No one, the cross
being disproportionately large, could possibly mistake it for anything
but a church. In front of it was a notice board, a nice black notice
board with a suggestion of Gothic architecture about it. On the board,
in bright white letters, was a list of services and the name of the
church--St John in the Wilderness.

Originally, before the move into the desert, it had been simply St John
the Evangelist, but Haddingly felt that the new circumstances demanded
a change of dedication. Everyone, from the colonel down to the humblest
private, was secretly proud of the church. The possession of such a
thing gave a certain distinction to the battalion. Haddingly was a good
deal chaffed about it; but the building was in a fair way to become a
regimental mascot "I'm not strafing the padre," said Captain Maitland,
"but I wish we had a few of the books we left behind."

"To listen to you talking," said Dalton, "anyone would think you were
some kind of literary swell--Hall Came and Wordsworth rolled into one,
whereas we all know that the only thing you take an interest in is
horses." Captain Maitland was very far from being a literary swell or
claiming any such title. The books he really liked, the only books he
read when he had a free choice, were sporting stories with a strong
racing and betting interest But in camp in the wilderness no sporting
stories were obtainable. The one novel which remained to the mess dealt
with the sex problem, a subject originally profoundly uninteresting to
Maitland, who had a healthy mind He read it, however, as a remedy for
insomnia. It proved effective. A couple of chapters sent him to sleep
every night, so the book lasted a good while.

Every morning at breakfast Maitland used to propound the problems raised
by the chapters which he had read the night before. The mess got
into the way of holding informal debates on the divorce laws. When he
finished the book, Maitland declared that he intended to devote himself
to Eugenics and the more enlightened kind of social reform as soon as
the war was over.

"I never thought of it before," he said, "but I can see now that the
future of the Empire really depends on the proper legislation for child
welfare, on ante-natal clinic, and the abolition of the old empiric
methods of marriage."

"Wait till after I'm married before you begin," said Dalton.

Haddingly was a little pained. He said things about the sanctity of
marriage and the fami