Clear above the din and the moaning, and the spasmodic fighting which
they could still hear going on up the trench, there sounded the
officers' dinner call. Twice it blared forth from the British lines,
and every man knew what it meant: "Come back, at once." The raid was
over. . . .

And so by ones and two and threes D Company returned to the fold, where
hot tea and a noggin of rum awaited them, giving their names to
Reginald on the way. To the casual observer it might have seemed that
D Company were drunk--one and all. They were--but not with wine. They
were drunk with excitement, and with the knowledge just acquired that
they could beat the Germans, man-to-man. They were blooded.

The lies they told--those cheery lads! Not a man had done in less than
forty Boches, which rose to eighty when they wrote their girls. What
matter? D Company of the Stick'em and be damned was made for life.
The men walked three inches higher; the men, as men, had come into
their own. Every new draft that came heard the story; every new draft
realised it had got something to live up to. No longer sand bags and
smells their horizon, but the memory of one glorious half-hour.

And when he thought over it afterwards, there was only one small thing
that struck Samuel Pipston as peculiar. He was just retailing to
Reginald Simpkins--with some wealth of detail--his experiences in the
German dug-out, when he became aware of the Honourable James beside
him, who listened for a while until he had finished.

"So you had a good time did you, Pipston?" he remarked. "Splendid!"
Then he turned to Simpkins. "The Company Commander tells me you were a
great help to him, checking the men as they came back. Well done."

It struck Samuel that he might have had a "Well done."

But then, he didn't know the Honourable Jimmy's methods; nor did he
know that while he and those with him had merely learned the first and
easiest lesson that night, Reginald Simpkins had learned the second.

VII

THE THIRD LESSON, AND A DIGRESSION

And so, with two of the lessons learned, we come to the third and
greatest. The first was basely material, and was taught by Shorty
Bill; the second was a little nearer the heart of things, and was
taught by the Honourable James; the third is the heart of things, and
can be taught by no one. The rules--vague rules--may be given by men
who have learned it to those who have not; but its true meaning, its
real signific