g taught
to blush and look away and start another subject when anybody says
"Dad-dad," and (if you can believe this) I've just been made to pay a
franc-and-a-half for a tin of bully beef.

But you don't sympathise, not a bit of it; why should you? I
shouldn't if I were in your place. I should just cut off the supply
of cigarettes and shaving-soap, stop wishing me good luck, and, with
haughty contempt, say, "Call yourself a soldier!" Nevertheless, my
friend, whatever I may _be_, I _look_ extraordinarily magnificent, so
much so that a short-sighted Major has taken his pipe out of his mouth
as I have drawn near and has as good as saluted me. When he saw I was
only a Captain (and a temporary Captain at that) he tried to cover his
mistake; but he didn't deceive me; he didn't need to take his pipe out
of his mouth in order to scratch his head, did he?

There is this to be said about being at war, you never know what is
going to happen to you next. For the most part this is just as well.
There is, however, a decent percentage of pleasant surprises, which
is, I suppose, the only thing that makes the business tolerable. No
orderly ever came up to the trenches, when I was in them, but he
gave rise to the hope that he had orders for me to come out at once
and command in chief. Some such orderly did arrive at last, but the
instructions he gave me said nothing about taking over the B.E.F.
Nevertheless orders were orders and I obeyed them and came out. Having
a private conversation with Fortune on the way down the communication
trench, I thanked her very sincerely for her kindness and said I was
so grateful that I would never ask her for anything else.

But you know human nature as well as I do; I soon found myself saying
what a hard life it was in an office, and how one missed the open-air
life one had with one's regiment and the healthy appetite it gave
one. Besides which, as I pointed out to Fortune, my solid worth wasn't
being recognised as it should be. "I don't ask for favours," I told
her. "All I ask is bare justice." Now, if I'd been Fortune, Charles,
and a man had spoken to me like that, after all I'd done for him, I'd
have had him marching up that communication trench again, with a full
pack, at five o'clock in the very next forenoon.

But Fortune, ever kind and forgiving, did no such thing. She
did remonstrate with me gently of nights, when the noise of the
bombardments was particularly fierce and prolonged. "What abou