Hun when they should be reported
fit for duty.

The English soldier hides his feelings as though he were ashamed of
them. The sombre silence became almost oppressive in the autumnal
twilight, and I sought to disperse it.

"I suppose you're pretty comfortable here?" I said, for the camp seemed
to leave nothing to be desired.

But this was to open the sluices of criticism. The British soldier
begins to "grouse" the moment he becomes comfortable--and not before. He
will bear without repining everything but luxury.

"One and six a day we gets," cried one of them, "and what's this about
this New Army getting four bob?"

"I think you're mistaken, my son," said the chaplain gently.

"Well, there's chaps in this 'ere camp, Army cooks they calls
themselves, speshully 'listed for the war, and they gets six bob. And
those shuvvers--they're like fighting cocks."

"Well, there seems nothing to complain of in the matter of supplies," I
said. They had been having a kind of high tea on tables laid across
trestles on the lawn, and one of them, using his knife as a bricklayer
uses his trowel, was luxuriously spreading a layer of apple and plum jam
upon a stratum of hard-boiled egg, which reposed on a bed-rock of bread
and butter, the whole representing a most interesting geological
formation and producing a startling chromatic effect.

"Why, sir, if you read the papers you wud 'a thocht it was a braw
pic-nic." said the red-headed one. "You wud think we were growin' fat
oot in the trenches. Dae ah look like it?"

My companion, the grey-headed chaplain, took the Highlander
affectionately by the second button of his tunic and gave it a pull.
"Not much space here, eh? I think you're pretty well fed, my son!"

A bugle-call rang out over the camp. "Bed-time," said a Guardsman, "time
to go bye-bye. Parade--hype! Dis-miss! The orderly officer'll be round
soon. Scoot, my sons."

They scooted.

The silvery notes of the bugle died away over the woods. Night was
falling, and the sky faded slowly from mother-of-pearl to a leaden gray.
We were alone. The chaplain gazed wistfully at the retreating figures,
his face seemed suddenly shrunken, and I could see that he was very old.
He took my arm and leaned heavily upon it. "I have been in the Army for
the best part of my life," he said simply, "and I had retired on a
pension. But I thank God," he added devoutly, "that it has pleased Him
to extend my days long enough to enable me to rejoin t