s to gather that he had an indirect connection
with that fine old regiment, the Macedonian Labour Corps.

After some time (about three decorations and a mention in despatches,
as McTurtle measured time) the overland leave route was opened, and
the far-reaching shadow of war plunged suddenly across McTurtle's
unlikely threshold. He was called upon, like many another harmless
Staff-officer, to give up his simple comforts and to face hardship
and suffering for a scrap of paper (authorising him to travel to
Manchester). At first McTurtle was content to let the younger men of
the Base make a stand against the aggression of the front line. Being
the only support of an aged Colonel and no mere youth, he left it to
the reckless A.P.M.'s, the dashing Camp Commandants and the carefree
dare-devil Field-Cashiers to repel the infantry and gunners. But his
conscience was uneasy, and indeed his apparent lack of proper feeling
was commented upon by others. Once an A.D.C. handed him a white
feather in the Rue Venizelos.

At length it became obvious that the Base was losing ground. The
infantry and gunners, outnumbering the Staff by at least two to one,
were gaining positions on each leave-party. The issue was trembling in
the balance, and McTurtle answered the call. With set lips he sought
the nearest orderly-room sergeant.

Before a week was out the night saw a train creeping through the
gloom towards Athens and McTurtle sitting wakeful amongst four snoring
infantrymen. He thought piously of the time when the Staff should
reach such a pitch of organization that it would be needless--nay,
impossible--for infantry to continue to exist. Towards dawn he fell
into a doze, and when he waked it was light. He lowered what had been
the window and looked out.

McTurtle hates heights, and in his cloistered Salonica life he had
never realised that the trains of Greece ran about like mice upon a
cornice. Four hundred precipitous feet yawned beneath his horrified
eyes, and at his first involuntary gasp the teeth he owed to art and
not to nature left him and swooped like a hawk upon a distant flock of
sheep. The shepherd, a simple rustic unfamiliar with modern dentistry,
endeavoured to sell them subsequently to a Y.M.C.A. archaeologist as
genuine antiques.

At that moment the train stopped. McTurtle thought that his loss had
been noticed, but as he made his way to the kit-truck for some more
teeth he discovered that a landslide barred the way.