s a rule, elicited appreciative cheers,
but this afternoon there was only a grave silence. After dismissal, the
men went to their huts and were soon busy giving themselves a "high mark
scrub" preliminary to the hot bath and "jungle hunt" in which they would
indulge themselves to-morrow.

As Barry was moving off the parade ground, the junior major caught up to
him, and took him by the arm and said:

"I have sent around my batman to your hut. He will look after you until
I can pick out a man from the new draft. We all know how you feel about
Hobbs, old man."

"Thank you, major," said Barry quietly. "I appreciate that."

"You will be around to-night," continued the major.

"No, I think not. I have a lot of things to do. All those letters to
write." Barry shuddered as he spoke. For nothing in all his ministerial
experience was to him a more exhausting and heartbreaking task than
the writing of these letters to the relatives and friends of his dead
comrades.

"I think you had better come," said the major earnestly. "I know the O.
C. would like it, and the boys would like it too."

"Do you think so?" said Barry. "Then I'll be there."

"Good man," said Major Bayne, patting him on the shoulder. "That's the
stuff we like in this battalion."

Barry found his hut in order, his things out for airing, his tub ready,
and supper in preparation.

"Thanks, Monroe," he said to Major Bayne's batman, as he passed into his
hut.

As he entered his hut and closed the door, for the first time there
swept over his soul an appalling and desolating sense of loneliness. It
was his first moment of quiet, his first leisure to think of himself for
almost two weeks. With the loss of his batman there had been snapped
the last link with that old home life of his, now so remote but all the
dearer for that. It came to him that while he remained a soldier, this
was to be his continual experience. Upon his return from every tour
new gaps would stare at him. Up in the lines they did not so terribly
obtrude themselves, but back here in rest billets they thrust themselves
upon him like hideous mutilations upon a well loved face. He could
hardly force himself to remove his muddy, filthy clothes. He would
gladly have laid himself down upon his cot just as he was, and given
himself up to the luxury of his grief and loneliness, until sleep should
come, but his life as a soldier had taught him something. These months
of discipline, and especially thes