like the British R. A. M. C. that would
send a man home for such a trifle. It was devilish hard lines to be
hoofed away from the regiment practically just after he had got his
command. However, he would be back in a week or two. He laughed.

"Lucky to be alive at all."

"Or not done in for ever like myself," said I.

"I didn't like to ask--" he said. Men would rather die than commit the
indelicacy of appearing to notice my infirmity.

"You haven't been out there?"

"No such luck," said I. "I got this little lot about a fortnight after
I saw you. Johnnie was still on sick leave and so was out of that
scrap."

He commiserated with me on my ill-fortune, and handed me his cigarette
case. We smoked.

"You've been on my mind for months," he said abruptly.

"I?"

He nodded. "I thought I recognised you. I asked the General who you
were. He said 'Meredyth of the Gunners.' So I knew I was right and made
a bee line for you. Do you remember the story of that man in the
hospital?"

"Perfectly," said I.

"About Boyce of the King's Watch?"

"Yes," said I. "I saw Boyce, home on leave, about a fortnight ago. I
suppose you saw his D.S.O. gazetted?"

"I did. And he deserves a jolly sight more," he exclaimed heartily.
"I've come to the conclusion that that fellow in the hospital--I forget
the brute's name--"

"Somers," said I.

"Yes, Somers. I've come to the conclusion that he was the damn'dest,
filthiest, lyingest hound that ever was pupped."

"I'm glad to hear it," said I. "It was a horrible story. I remember
making your brother and yourself vow eternal secrecy."

"You can take it from me that we haven't breathed a word to anybody. As
a matter of fact, the whole damn thing had gone out of my head for
years. Then I begin to hear of a fellow called Boyce of the Rifles
doing the most crazy magnificent things. I make enquiries and find it's
the same Leonard Boyce of the Vilboek Farm story. We're in the same
Brigade.

"You don't often hear of individual men out there--your mind's too
jolly well concentrated on your own tiny show. But Boyce has sort of
burst out beyond his own regiment and, with just one or two others, is
beginning to be legendary. He has done the maddest things and won the
V.C. twenty times over. So that blighter Somers, accusing him of
cowardice, was a ghastly liar. And then I remembered taking you up to
hear that damnable slander, and I felt that I had a share in it, as far
as you were concerned,