would be incredible, inconceivable; but impossible things had happened
before. Many must have felt that fear, but to none can it have been
quite so personal, so hideously personal, as to the officers of the old
Army and the Navy. To them it was as if their own honour were at
stake, and I can see now a man opposite me almost sobbing with the fury
and the shame of it when for a while we thought--the worst. But that
was later.

"Time to go on board, gentlemen."

Almost as beings from another world, they passed through the noisy
throng, so utterly inconsequent, so absolutely ignorant and careless.
One cannot help wondering now just how that throng has answered the
great call; how many lie in nameless graves, with the remnants of Ypres
standing sentinel to their last sleep; how many have fought and cursed
and killed in the mud-holes of the Somme; how many have chosen the
other path, and even though they had no skill and aptitude to recommend
them, are earning now their three and four pounds a week making
munitions. But they _have_ answered the call, that throng and others
like them; they _have_ learned out of the book of life and death; and
perhaps the tall man with the bronzed face might find the answer to his
question could he see England to-day. Only he lies somewhere between
Fletre and Meteren, and beside him are twenty men of his battalion. He
took it in the fighting before the first battle of Ypres . . .

"I call it a bit steep." A man in the Indian Cavalry broke the silence
of the group who were leaning over the side watching the coast fade
away. "In England two days after three years of it, and now here we
are again. But the sun being over the yard-arm--what say you?"

With one last final look at the blue line astern, with one last
involuntary thought--"Is it _au revoir_, or is it good-bye?"--they went
below. The sun was indeed over the yard-arm, and the steward was a
hospitable lad of cosmopolitan instincts. . . .

II

"It is impossible to _guarantee_ a ticket to Marseilles." So the
ticket vendor at Folkestone had informed them, and his pessimism was
justified by future events.

The fun began at the Gare du Nord. From what I have since learned, I
have often wished since that my mission in life had been to drive a
fiacre in Paris during the early days of August '14. A taxi conjures
up visions too wonderful to contemplate; but even with the humble
horse-bus I feel that I should now be able t