ys, but also to maintain on
all occasions a superlatively military bearing. Confronted by the
private and expected to order him about, he hesitated, blushed and at
last made it clear that he simply must, before beginning, have a few
words apart in the General's private ear. With kindly toleration the
General eventually conceded this, and it was then made more than
apparent to him why it was that the earnest young subaltern was
reluctant to give his orders to the private without some explanation in
advance to the Brigadier. "The man's _surname_ is Bhyll, Sir," he
whispered.

Red-hats may not always know much about life in the trenches, but they
can tell you at first hand what strafing was like when there were no
trenches to live in. You will perhaps care to hear of an adventure of
the good old days, when men wandered about Flanders on their own,
sometimes attaching themselves to English units, sometimes to French,
and sometimes marching inadvertently with the Central Powers. Maps in
those days didn't show you clearly which was your bit and which was the
other fellow's, and many a time different parties, meeting in the dark,
would be quite affable in passing, little knowing it was each other's
blood they were after. My man, at the moment when we take up the
narrative, was walking about in a wood, looking for a job. Half an hour
earlier he had been busily engaged in a brisk battle, but, owing to his
not keeping his mind on it, he'd got detached and now found himself in
one of those peculiarly peaceful solitudes which only exist in the heart
of the war zone. Whether the battle was over and, if so, who'd won it,
he couldn't say. In fact, those being the early confused days, he didn't
rightly know whether it had been a battle at all or just a little
personal unpleasantness between himself and his private enemies.
Everything appeared to be exactly as it should not be; he felt that he
ought to be exhilarated with victory or depressed with defeat, exhausted
or maimed, and not merely covered from top to toe with mud. He found
himself walking along in a wood, just as he might do at home, smoking a
cigarette and thinking that this would be a most convenient moment for a
wash and a cup of tea. As he said, the very last thing he seemed to be
at was war, when suddenly, climbing over a small ridge, he discovered
himself face to face with a hostile sentry, and near him were, at
repose, a knot of other equally repulsive Bosches.

It ha