ment gets buried by a shell.
That is a terrific nerve shock. He sees two or three chaps blown to
bits. Another nerve shock. Now he has heard about shell shock as a
result of a similar experience. Immediately the suggestion begins to
work and the man discovers in himself the well known symptoms of genuine
shell shock, and, begad! I don't wonder. What we have just given him is
part of the treatment for hysteria--a little nerve tonic. A good sleep
may put him all right by to-morrow morning. The chances are, however,
that the O. C. will send him down for a few days' rest and change. If
so, the chap will be as happy as a clam. The boys will rag him half to
death down there, so that he will be keen to get back again, and the
chances are may get his V. C. Oh, we all get scared stiff," laughed
Gregg. "We are none of us proud about here. That hero stuff that you
read about in the home papers, we don't know much about. We just 'carry
on'."

"By Jove, Gregg! That's all right, but to just 'carry on' in this
business, it seems to me, calls for some pretty fine hero stuff."

"Well, we don't call it so," said Gregg. "Now I'll see about your
ambulance. I believe there's one about ready to go. I think I can find a
place for you and your friend, and it will save you a long walk."

They came away from the old mill with mingled feelings. Barry had to a
certain extent recovered from his shock, and had himself somewhat firmly
in hand. Cameron was still silent and obviously shaken.

It was grey dawn when they arrived at the camp, physically weary,
nervously exhausted, and sick at heart. Barry wakened Hobbs, who greeted
them with the news that the battalion was under orders to go up that
night. By his own state Barry was able to gauge that of his friend
Cameron. The experiences of the last ten hours had been like nothing in
his previous life. The desolation wrought by war upon the face of the
country, upon the bodies of men, upon their souls, had sickened and
unnerved him; and this he remembered was an experience of only a brief
ten hours. He was conscious of a profound self-distrust and humiliation,
as he thought of those other men, those medical officers, with their
orderlies, the ambulance drivers, those wounded soldiers. How could they
endure this horror, day in and day out, for weeks and for months? In a
few hours he would have to meet his fellow officers and the men. They
could not fail to read in his face all this that he carried in