ood-bye, and good luck." We shook hands, I came to the salute,
and the next moment I found myself once more outside the orderly room
door.

Have you ever experienced the feeling? Yes, thousands have, for the
despatch of reinforcing officers to the front in this abrupt manner
was taking place daily throughout the empire. You remember the feeling
quite well; amazement at its suddenness; eagerness for the adventure;
the prospect of the home parting; the sudden change in the daily
routine; the mystery of the future--all swirling through your brain in
a jumble of thoughts.

Then the hasty despatch of telegrams, the examination of time-tables,
and the feverish packing of a kit which has grown to enormous
proportions and hopelessly defies the regulations for weight.

An hour later and I had made a quick sale of my bicycle, distributed
odds and ends of hut furniture which I should no longer need, and was
sitting in a motor-car, outside the mess, grabbing at hands which were
outstretched in farewell.

Those who lived in camp at Fovant can remember what an uninteresting,
dreary place it seemed at the time, and how we cursed its monotony.
Rows upon rows of uninteresting and uninviting looking huts; the
large, barren square; the heart-breaking trudge to the station; the
little village with the military policeman, who stood at the fork of
the roads, and whose job seemed so easy, while ours seemed so hard;
and who always seemed so clean and cool, while we seemed so hot and
dusty.

The city of Salisbury, our one ray of hope, but which was too far to
walk to, and too expensive to ride to--all these things we used to
look upon as sufferings which had to be put up with. But we can look
upon the picture now, and there are few of us who can do so without a
feeling of affection, for there was a spirit of comradeship there
which links up the dreariness into pleasant recollections.

Now that I have been through the mill I can look back at that parting
scene, and as the car whirls away and my brother officers walk back
into the mess, I fancy I can hear the comment of those who had not yet
been out and those who had:

"Lucky brute."

"Poor devil!"

CHAPTER II

THE SILENT HEROES

THE WOMAN WHO WAITS--AND SUFFERS IN SILENCE

I was soon comfortably settled in a first-class compartment and
whirling towards Waterloo, with the worst ordeal of all still before
me: the breaking of the news at home and the parting while the shoc