f-circle, and fell about
fifteen yards from the muzzles of their guns.

The Colonel, looking about him for a tree not too difficult to climb,
caught sight of the beech under which McMahon lay. It seemed exactly the
kind of tree he required. It was high. Its lower branches were close
to the ground. It looked strong and sound. The Colonel pushed his way
through the hedge, avoided the oats, and approached the tree across a
pasture field. He came on McMahon stretched flat on his back, a tumbler
full of lemon squash beside him and his novel in his hand. The Colonel
was still irritated by the Adjutant's suggestion that he was too old
to climb trees. He was also beginning, now that he was near a tree,
to wonder uneasily whether the Adjutant had not been right He saw an
opportunity of expressing his feelings at the expense of McMahon.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

McMahon, who had not seen the Colonel approach, stood up hurriedly,
upsetting his lemon squash, and saluting.

"What the deuce are you doing here?" said the Colonel. "You've no
business to be idling, drinking and smoking under a tree, when the
battalion is in action."

"This is an advanced dressing station, sir," said McMahon. "I'm waiting
for the casualties.

"That's not your duty," said the Colonel. "Your duty is to be with the
men, in the firing line, ready to render first aid when required."

"Beg pardon, sir," said McMahon, "but I don't think that you're quite
right in saying----"

"Do you mean to tell me," said the Colonel, "that it isn't the duty of a
medical officer to accompany the men into the firing line?"

McMahon saluted again.

"According to the instructions issued by the R.A.M.C., sir," he said,
"my place is in the advanced dressing station when there's only one
medical officer attached to the unit in action. If there is more than
one the position is, of course, quite different."

The Colonel, though a soldier of long experience, was not at all sure
what instructions the R.A.M.C. authorities might have issued to their
officers. And doctors are a powerful faction, given to standing together
and defying anyone who attempts to interfere with them. Besides, no one,
not even the strongest and healthiest of us, knows how soon he may find
himself under the power of a doctor, seized with a pain or other form of
discomfort which only a doctor can alleviate. It is never wise to push
things to a quarrel with any member of the R.A.M.C.

The