ed that
you'd be able to suggest something. But you can tell me what you think
of the story. That's what I really want to get out of you. Is it a Sob
Story or just a rather unusual spoof?"

"That," I said, "depends entirely whether you look at it from Simcox'
point of view or Pat Singleton's."

VIII ~~ SIR GALAHAD

The order, long expected and eagerly desired, came at last. The
battalion moved out from dusty and crowded barracks to a camp in the
wilderness. Lieutenant Dalton, a cheerful boy who had been taught Holy
Scripture in his childhood, wrote to his mother that the new camp was
"Somewhere in the wilderness beyond Jordan between the river of Egypt
and the great sea." This description of the situation was so entirely
inaccurate that the Censor allowed it to pass without complaint. Old
Mrs. Dalton told her friends that her son was living under the shadow
of Mount Sinai. He was, in fact, nowhere near either Jordan or Sinai. He
was some miles east of the Suez Canal. For a week or so officers and men
rejoiced in their new quarters. There was plenty of elbow room; no
more of the overcrowding they had suffered since they landed. They had,
indeed, miles of totally unoccupied desert at their disposal. Each
tent might have stood in its own private grounds, three acres or so in
extent, if that had not been felt by the colonel to be an inconvenient
arrangement. There was also--and this particularly pleased the
battalion--the prospect of a fight with the Turks. Everyone believed
when the move was made that a battle was imminent, and the battalion,
which had no experience of fighting, was most anxious to show what it
could do.

After awhile the enthusiasm for the new camp began to fade. The Turks
did not put in an appearance, and life was as peaceful as it had been in
the English camp where the battalion was trained. The situation of the
camp, though roomy, was not exciting. Both officers and men began to
find existence exceedingly dull. Lieutenant Dalton, who at this time
wrote long letters to his mother, told her that he understood at last
why the Children of Israel were so desperately anxious to get back
to Egypt and were inclined to rag Moses about the want of melons and
cucumbers. At the end of the month the whole battalion was bored to
exasperation.

The desert which stretched in front of the camp was intolerably flat The
sun rose with pitiless regularity, shone with a steady glare for a great
many hours, and