an adversary who was a gentleman; and although there was plenty of
risk, the chances were that one came through all right. At any rate,
there was no poison gas, and one did not see a whole platoon blown to
pieces, or buried alive, by a single shell. If Brother Boer took
you prisoner, he did not stick you in the stomach with a saw-edged
bayonet. At the worst he pinched your trousers. But Brother Boche is
a different proposition. Since he butted in, war has descended in
the social scale. And modern scientific developments have turned a
sporting chance of being scuppered into a mathematical certainty.
And yet--and yet--old Mucklewame is right. One _hates_ to be out of
it--especially at the finish. When the regiment comes stumping through
London on its way back to Euston--next year, or whenever it's going to
be--with their ragged pipers leading the way, you would like to be
at the head of 'A' Company, Bobby, and I would give something to be
exercising my old function of whipper-in. Eh, boy?"

"Never mind," said practical Bobby. "Perhaps we shall be on somebody's
glittering Staff. What I hate to feel at present is that the other
fellows, out there, have got to go on sticking it, while we--"

"And by God," exclaimed Wagstaffe, "what stickers they are--and were!
Did you ever see anything so splendid, Bobby, as those six-months-old
soldiers of ours--in the early days, I mean, when we held our
trenches, week by week, under continuous bombardment, and our gunners
behind could only help us with four or five rounds a day?"

"I never did," said Bobby, truthfully.

"I admit to you," continued Wagstaffe, "that when I found myself
pitchforked into 'K(1)' at the outbreak of the war, instead of getting
back to my old line battalion, I was a pretty sick man. I hated
everybody. I was one of the old school--or liked to think I was--and
the ways of the new school were not my ways. I hated the new officers.
Some of them bullied the men; some of them allowed themselves to be
bullied by N.C.O.'s. Some never gave or returned salutes, others went
about saluting everybody. Some came into Mess in fancy dress of their
own design, and elbowed senior officers off the hearthrug. I used to
marvel at the Colonel's patience with them. But many of them are dead
now, Bobby, and they nearly all made good. Then the men! After ten
years in the regular Army I hated them all--the way they lounged, the
way they dressed, the way they sat, the way they spat. I