ergeant and handed him
over with a wink. The recruiting sergeant asked a few convenient
questions, and within the hour Nat was a soldier of King George.
To his disgust, however, they did not embark him for Portugal, but
marched him up the length of England to Lancaster, to learn his drill
with the second battalion.

Seventeen months later they marched him back through the length of
England--outwardly a made soldier--and shipped him on a transport for
Gibraltar. In the meanwhile he had found two friends, the only two
real ones he ever found in his life. They were Dave McInnes and
Teddy Butson, privates of the 4th Regiment of Foot, 2nd Battalion, C
Company. Dave McInnes came from somewhere to the west of Perth and
drank like a fish when he had the chance. Teddy Butson came from the
Lord knew where, with a tongue that wagged about everything except
his own past. It did indeed wag about that, but told nothing but lies
which were understood and accepted for lies and by consequence didn't
count. These two had christened Nat Ellery "Spuds." He had no secret
from them but one.

He was the cleverest of the three, and they admired him for it. He
admired them in return for possessing something he lacked. It seemed
to him the most important, almost the only important, thing in the
world.

For (this was his secret) he believed himself to be a coward. He
was not really a coward, though he carried about in his heart the
liveliest fear of death and wounds. He was always asking himself
how he would behave under fire, and somehow he found the odds heavy
against his behaving well. He put roundabout questions to Dave and
Teddy with the aim of discovering what they felt about it. They
answered in a careless, matter-of-fact way, as men to whom it had
never occurred to have any doubt about themselves. Nat was desperately
afraid they might guess his reason for asking. Just here, when their
friendship might have been helpful, it failed altogether. He felt
angry with them for not understanding, while he prayed that they might
not understand. He took to observing other men in the regiment, and
found them equally cheerful, concerned only with the moment. He became
secretly religious after a fashion. He felt that he was the one and
only coward in the King's Own, and prayed and planned his behaviour
day and night to avoid being found out.

In this state of mind he landed at Gibraltar. When the order came for
the 4th to move up to the front, he