e other. "Come on, Ginger, let's
get off on the first stage for Blighty. On me back, we does it--on me
back. 'Ere, boy--lumme! turn 'im over, Bill." The torch shines down
on the face upturned to the stars; the stretcher bearers bend down and
suddenly straighten up again. For Ginger is even now passing along the
last great road: he has copped it. The group disperse; the officer
goes back to his job; the stretcher bearers do their work; and soon
nothing remains save the stain on the dirty sandbags. Just another
letter to a woman at home; just war.

Only to his pal, it's Ginger: Ginger whom he'd joined up with;
Ginger--killed putting up a bit of rusty wire. Not doing anything
brilliant, not in a charge or going over the top, but putting up a bit
of ruddy wire. What is the use of it all, what? . . .

Come on, my leader; come on, you platoon commander; the soul of
Ginger's pal is in the melting-pot, though he doesn't know it, and
would curse in your face if you told him so. A quiet hand on the back,
a laugh perhaps, just a word to show him that you feel with him. His
outlook on life is not as big as yours; help him--for Heaven's sake,
help him. Thus is it done if the leader of the regiment is a man of
understanding; for each of his assistants, right down the long chain to
the junior lance-corporal, have been imbued with their responsibility
to those under them. They are there to help them, to lighten their
burdens, to sink self for the men they lead. The strong must help the
weak--that is the principle; and every one must pull his weight for the
good of the team.

But I have got off the rails again; I apologise.

During those weeks of boredom, Reginald, though he knew it not, was
being watched, still watched, by the Honourable James. And it seemed
to that judge of character that the soil was good.

"The Adjutant asked me if I'd like to take the stripe this morning,
Shorty." Reginald and his pal were watching an inter-company football
match on the ground by the Lens main road, near the little village of
Noyelles-les-Vermelles. It is on the borders of the coal country--that
village, and all around it rise the great pyramidical slag heaps of the
pits.

"Did 'e now?" Shorty contemplated with interest a shell bursting on
the derelict fosse in the next village of Annequin, and turned
thoughtfully to the speaker. "An' what did you say to him?"

"I said I didn't want to. Why the devil should I? I don't