not so difficult. I feel sometimes inclined to
argue that way myself, when my dinner doesn't agree with me. It's not
so hard as to wander round the Fatherland abusing Britain, which was
your last job.'

'I'm ready,' I said. 'But I want to do one errand on my own first. I
must see a fellow in my brigade who is in a shell-shock hospital in the
Cotswolds. Isham's the name of the place.'

The two men exchanged glances. 'This looks like fate,' said Bullivant.
'By all means go to Isham. The place where your work begins is only a
couple of miles off. I want you to spend next Thursday night as the
guest of two maiden ladies called Wymondham at Fosse Manor. You will go
down there as a lone South African visiting a sick friend. They are
hospitable souls and entertain many angels unawares.'

'And I get my orders there?'

'You get your orders, and you are under bond to obey them.' And
Bullivant and Macgillivray smiled at each other.

I was thinking hard about that odd conversation as the small Ford car,
which I had wired for to the inn, carried me away from the suburbs of
the county town into a land of rolling hills and green water-meadows.
It was a gorgeous afternoon and the blossom of early June was on every
tree. But I had no eyes for landscape and the summer, being engaged in
reprobating Bullivant and cursing my fantastic fate. I detested my new
part and looked forward to naked shame. It was bad enough for anyone to
have to pose as a pacifist, but for me, strong as a bull and as
sunburnt as a gipsy and not looking my forty years, it was a black
disgrace. To go into Germany as an anti-British Afrikander was a
stoutish adventure, but to lounge about at home talking rot was a very
different-sized job. My stomach rose at the thought of it, and I had
pretty well decided to wire to Bullivant and cry off. There are some
things that no one has a right to ask of any white man.

When I got to Isham and found poor old Blaikie I didn't feel happier.
He had been a friend of mine in Rhodesia, and after the German
South-West affair was over had come home to a Fusilier battalion, which
was in my brigade at Arras. He had been buried by a big crump just
before we got our second objective, and was dug out without a scratch
on him, but as daft as a hatter. I had heard he was mending, and had
promised his family to look him up the first chance I got. I found him
sitting on a garden seat, staring steadily before him like a lookout at
sea. He