somewhere near Suez.

Then, in a corner of a ruined village, they had come across a green
felt hat and a fearsome moustache, which turned out reassuringly to
belong to a rocking, tottering old man; and the Tommies--who are a
primitive and adventurous race--were glad of the protection of this
wild old totem of the Frankish tribe.

Then came motor-lorries to take the whole Division to the North,
and through all the bustle and disorder they were conscious of
a giant hand trying with prudent and skilful movements to
rebuild the line.

"What can a general do?" the doctor had asked. "This war is too vast
to be affected by human volition. Victory will come through tiny,
decisive forces that have been at work since the beginning of the
world. Tolstoy's Kutusoff used to go to sleep in Council--yet he beat
Napoleon."

"However vast the scale of circumstance may be," said the colonel, "a
man can change everything. A child cannot push a railway engine; yet
he can start it if he opens the right throttle. A man has only to
apply his will at the right place, and he will be master of the
world. Your determinism is nothing more than a paradox. You build a
cage round yourself and then are astonished you are a prisoner."

They were going forward rapidly. Aurelle, mounted on his old white
Arab, trotted between the doctor and Colonel Parker.

"Don't hold your horse in so tightly, Messiou; give him the rein."

"But the road's full of holes, sir."

"My dear chap, when a man is on a horse, the horse is always the more
intelligent of the pair."

He slackened his mare's rein to pass by a huge shell-hole, and began
to talk of the peace that was at hand.

"The most difficult thing of all," he said, "will be to preserve in
our victory the virtues that won it for us. Germany and Russia will
do their best to corrupt us. A dishonoured nation always tries to
bury its shame under the ruins of the victor's civilization. It's the
device of Samson; it's as old as history itself. Rome, surrounded by
vanquished and humbled nations, witnessed the lightning speed of
Judaic preaching, which was so much like the Bolshevism of our day.
The Russian ghettos of our capitals had their counterpart then in
the Syrian dens that swarmed in the large ports; that is where the
apostles of mystical communism preached most successfully. And
Juvenal and Tacitus, who were gentlemen, had good reason to detest
those anarchists, who condemned Roman civilization with