ot advancement."

"I know," I nodded. "I've read history. A few trifles like the rescue of
the rifles and holding that trench and--"

The old soldier interrupted, looking thunderous. "It has a bearing on
the episode I'm about to tell you. That's why I refer to it."

I didn't mind his haughtiness. It was given me to see the boy's shyness
within that grim old hero.

"So that when I landed in London in 1917, having been stupid enough to
get my right arm potted, it happened that my name was known. They picked
me out to make a doing over. I was most uncommonly conspicuous for
nothing more than thousands of other lads had done. They'd given their
lives like water, thousands of them--it made me sick with shame, when I
thought of those others, to have my name ringing through the land. But
so it was, and it served a purpose, right enough, I saw later.

"Then, as I began to crawl about, came the crisis of the war. Ill news
piled on ill news; the army in France was down with an epidemic; each
day's news was worse than the last; to top all, the Germans found the
fleet. It was in letters a foot long about London--newsboys crying awful
words:

"'Fleet discovered--German submarines and Zeppelins approaching.'

"A bit later, still worse. 'The _Bellerophon_ sunk by German
torpedo--ten dreadnoughts sunk--' There were the names of the big ships,
the _Queen Elizabeth_, the _Warspite_, the _Thunderer_, the
_Agamemnon_, the _King Edward_--a lot more, battle cruisers, too--then
ten more dreadnoughts--and more and worse every hour. The German navy
was said to be coming into the North Sea and advancing to our coast. And
our navy was going--gone--nothing to stand between us and the fate of
Belgium.

"Then England went mad! I thank God I'll not live through such days
again. The land went mad with fear. You'll remember that there had been
a three-year strain which human nerves were not meant to bear. Well,
there was a faction who urged that the only sane act now possible was to
surrender to Germany quickly and hope for a mercy which we couldn't get
if we struggled. The government, under enormous pressure, weakened. It's
easy to cry 'Shame!' now, but how could it stand firm with the country
stampeding back of it?

"So things were the day of the mass meeting in Trafalgar Square. I was
tall, and so thin and gaunt that, with my uniform and my arm in its
sling, it was easy to get close to the front, straight under the
speakers. And no sooner