2 Battery,
subject to the approval of Major Craim, the commanding officer. Major
Craim was young and fair and benevolent, and at once approvingly
welcomed George, who thereupon became the junior subaltern of the
Battery. The other half-dozen officers, to whom he was introduced one by
one as they came in, seemed amiable and very well-mannered, if unduly
excited. When, immediately before lunch, the Major was called away to
lunch with Colonel Hullocher, the excitement of the mess seemed to boil
over. The enormous fact was that the whole Division--yeomanry, infantry,
and artillery--had been ordered to trek southward the next morning. The
Division was not ready to trek; in particular the Second Brigade of its
artillery, and quite specially Battery No. 2 of the Second Brigade, was
not ready to trek. Nevertheless it would trek. It might even trek to
France. Southward was Franceward, and there were those who joyously
believed that this First Line Territorial Division was destined to lead
the Territorial Army in France.

All the officers had a schoolboyish demeanour; all of them called one
another by diminutives ending in 'y'; all of them were pretty young.
But George soon divided them into two distinct groups--those who worried
about the smooth working of the great trek, and those who did not. Among
the former was Captain Resmith, the second in command, a dark man with a
positive, strong voice, somewhat similar to George in appearance.
Captain Resmith took George very seriously, and promised to initiate him
personally into as many technical mysteries as could be compressed into
one afternoon. Then a Major Tumulty, middle-aged and pale, came
hurriedly into the stuffy room and said without any prologue:

"Now I must have one of you chaps this afternoon. Otherwise I promise
you you won't get all the things you want."

Silence fell on the mess.

"The C.O. isn't here, sir," said Captain Resmith.

"I can't help that. I'm not going alone."

"Cannon, you'd better go with Major Tumulty. Major, this is Mr. Cannon,
our latest addition."

George only knew about Major Tumulty that he was Major Tumulty and that
he did not belong to No. 2 Battery. So far as George was concerned he
was a major in the air. After drinking a glass of port with the mess,
Major Tumulty suddenly remembered that he was in a hurry, and took
George off and put him into a scarlet London-General motor-bus that was
throbbing at the door of the public-house, with a