eter.
Bath is nearer to Edinburgh than Exeter, so they send you there. It is
kindly meant, but--"

"I say," croaked a voice from another cot,--its owner was a young
officer who must just have escaped being left behind at a Base
hospital as too dangerously wounded to move,--"is that a newspaper
down there? Would some one have a look, and tell me if we have got
Longueval all right? Longueval? Long--I got pipped, and don't quite--"

The wounded major turned his head quickly.

"Hallo, Bobby!" he observed cheerfully. "That you? I didn't notice you
before."

Bobby Little's hot eyes turned slowly on Wagstaffe, and he exclaimed
feverishly:--

"Hallo, Major! Cheeroh! Did we stick to Longueval all right? I've been
dreaming about it a bit, and--"

"We did," replied Wagstaffe--"thanks to 'A' Company."

Bobby Little's head fell back on the pillow, and he remarked
contentedly:--

"Thanks awfully. I think I can sleep a bit now. So long! See you
later!"

His eyes closed, and he sighed happily, as the long train slid out
from the platform.

XIII

"TWO OLD SOLDIERS, BROKEN IN THE WARS"

The smoking-room of the Britannia Club used to be exactly like the
smoking-room of every other London Club. That is to say, members
lounged about in deep chairs, and talked shop, or scandal--or
slumbered. At any moment you might touch a convenient bell, and a
waiter would appear at your elbow, like a jinnee from a jar, and
accept an order with silent deference. You could do this all day, and
the jinnee never failed to hear and obey.

That was before the war. Now, those idyllic days are gone. So is the
waiter. So is the efficacy of the bell. You may ring, but all that
will materialise is a self-righteous little girl, in brass buttons,
who will shake her head reprovingly and refer you to certain passages
in the Defence of the Realm Act.

Towards the hour of six-thirty, however, something of the old spirit
of Liberty asserts itself. A throng of members--chiefly elderly
gentlemen in expanded uniforms--assembles in the smoking-room,
occupying all the chairs, and even overflowing on to the tables and
window-sills. They are not the discursive, argumentative gathering
of three years ago. They sit silent, restless, glancing furtively at
their wrist-watches.

The clocks of London strike half-past six. Simultaneously the door of
the smoking-room is thrown open, and a buxom young woman in cap and
apron bounces in. She smiles maternally