blue. The optimists said it was the Needles, the pessimists
the Start; the latter were right, and we guessed we should have to
wait till Monday before landing; but that did not lessen the delight
of watching the familiar shores slide by till the Needles were
reached, and then of feasting our eyes, long accustomed to the parched
plains of Africa, on fields and hedges, and familiar signs of homely,
peaceful life.

It was four o'clock when we dropped anchor in Southampton Water, and
were shouting a thousand questions at the occupants of a tug which lay
alongside, and learnt with wonder, emotion, and a strange sense of
unworthiness, of the magnificent welcome that London had prepared for
us.

The interminable day of waiting; the landing on the quay, with its
cheering crowds; that wonderful journey to London, with its growing
tumult of feelings, as station after station, with their ribboned and
shouting throngs, flashed by; the meeting at Paddington with our
comrades of the Honourable Artillery Company, bringing us their guns
and horses; the mounting of a glossy, smartly-equipped steed, which
made me laughingly recall my shaggy old pair, with their dusty,
travel-worn harness; all this I see clearly enough. The rest seems a
dream; a dream of miles of upturned faces, of dancing colours, of
roaring voices, of a sudden dim hush in the great Cathedral, of more
miles of faces under gaslight, of a voice in a packed hall saying,
"London is proud of her--," of disconnected confidences with
policemen, work-people, street-arabs, and finally of the entry once
more through the old grey gateway of the Armoury House. I expect the
feelings of all of us were much the same; some honest pride in having
helped to earn such a welcome; a sort of stunned bewilderment at its
touching and passionate intensity; a deep wave of affection for our
countrymen; and a thought in the background all the time of a dusty
khaki figure still plodding the distant veldt--our friend and comrade,
Atkins, who has done more and bloodier work than we, and who is not at
the end of it yet.

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's In the Ranks of the C.I.V., by Erskine Childers

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