ing of the Boche
machine-gunners were eagerly planned. It was 2 P.M. now, and the
colonel had forgotten all about lunch. "I think we can get back now,"
he said brightly. "Register on that house," he added, turning to the
officers in the pit, "and you can give that machine-gunner a hot time
whenever he dares to become troublesome."

We walked back to the sunken road in the highest of spirits, and after
the major of the Machine-Gun Corps, who had watched the shooting, had
thanked the colonel and expressed the view that the Boche
machine-gunner might in future be reckoned among the down-and-outs, the
colonel talked of other things besides gunnery.

I told him that though on my last leave to England I had noted a new
seriousness running through the minds of people, I had not altogether
found the humble unselfishness, the chastened spirit that many thinkers
had prophesied as inevitable and necessary before the coming of
victory.

"But what about the men who have been out here? Won't they be the
people of England after the war--the real representative people?"
returned the colonel, his eyes lighting up as he talked. "Theirs has
been the chastening experience, at any rate. The man who comes through
this must be the better man for it."

The conversation lost its seriousness when we discussed whether Army
habits would weave themselves into the ordinary workaday world as a
result of the war.

"Some of them would be good for us," said the colonel happily. "Here's
one"--picking up a rifle and carrying it at the slope--"I'm going to
carry this to the first salvage dump, and help to keep down taxation."

"It might be an interesting experiment to run Society on Active Service
lines," I put in. "Fancy being made an Acting-Baronet and then a
Temporary-Baronet before getting substantive rank. And the thought of
an Acting-Duke paralyses one."

We laughed and walked on. Along the road leading back into the village
we met a bombardier, who saluted the colonel with the direct glance and
the half-smile that betokens previous acquaintance. The colonel
stopped. "What's your name, Bombardier?" he demanded. The bombardier
told him. "Weren't you in my battery?"

"Yes, sir," said the man, smiling, "when we first came to France....
I'd like to be back in the old Division, sir."

"I'll see what can be done," said the colonel, taking his name and
number.

"I believe I remember him, because he often came before me as a
prisoner," he told