become a pupil. "Those are your orders; there is
nothing more to be said." Only too true; there _is_ nothing more to be
said--but thinking is a different matter. . . .

And what brush can paint the indescribable longing of those who were
fitted for it, who were trained in its ways, to get to their goal--to
get to the Land of Promise. For it was a Land of Promise; it was the
land of the regular soldier's dreams. And in those days there was no
thought of the dream becoming a nightmare. . . .

So Clive Draycott and those with him, in that little rocky outpost of
Empire, carried on as cheerfully as a wet sirocco wind and an
ever-present heart-burning to be in France would allow, and waited for
deliverance.

Perhaps they suffered more acutely than even those who were in the
Great Retreat. Out of it, as they thought, out of it. Would they ever
be able to hold up their heads again?

And then the worst thing of all: that awful day when the news came
through--the news which England got one Sunday. Fellows kept it from
the men as far as they could; they covered up places on the map with
their hand, unostentatiously; and when they had found Compiegne they
folded the map up, and told the men everything was well. It was that
evening that Draycott and a pal watched the sun go down over Gozo from
St. Paul's Bay, where the statue stands in the sea, and the shallow
blue water ripples against the white sandstone.

"My God! it can't be true!" His companion turned to him, and his eyes
were tired. "It can't be true. We're b----" And his lips would not
frame the word.

Only, in their hearts they knew it was true; and in their hearts a
dreadful hopelessness wormed its bitter way. But crushing it down
there was another feeling--stronger and more powerful. England _could_
not be beaten, _would_ not be beaten; the thing was impossible,
unbelievable. Triumphant it arose, that great certainty. It arose
then, and has never died since, though at times the sky has been black
and the storm clouds ominous. They knew that all would be well; and
now--after three years--all is well. Their faith has been justified,
the faith of the men who waited their call to the work. Only a small
proportion remain to see that justification with their own eyes; the
Land has claimed the rest. Ypres, the Marne, Neuve Chapelle,
Festubert--names well-nigh forgotten in the greater battles of
to-day--in each and all of them the seed of "a contemptibl