erous," he said. "If I thought there was half a chance I'd
go with you, but we don't want to lose any more."

Those ten or twelve men went out of our lives completely. Days passed.
There was no news. It was queer. It was queer when I called the roll
next day--

"Briggs!"--"Sar'nt!"

"Boots!"--"Sarn't!"

"Cudworth!"--"Here, Sar'nt!"

"Dean!"--"Sar'nt!"

"Desmond!"--"Sar'nt!"

"D---."

I couldn't remember not to call his name out. It seemed queer that he
was missing. It seemed quite hopeless now. Three or four days dragged
on. Everything continued as usual. We went up past the place where we
had left them, and there was no news, no sign. They just vanished. No
one saw them again, and except for the "riddled" rumour of the poor old
sergeant the whole thing was a blank.

We supposed that the young officer, coming fresh to the place, did not
know where the British lines ended and the Turks' began, and he marched
his squads into that bit of No Man's Land beyond the machine-gun near
"Jefferson's Post," and was either shot or taken prisoner.

It made the men heavy and sad-minded.

"Poor old Mellor--'e warn't a bad sort, was he!"

"Ah!--an' Bell, Sergeant Bell... riddled they say... some one seen
'm--artillery or some one!"

It hung over them like a cloud. The men talked of nothing else.

"Somebody's blundered," said one.

"It's a pity any'ow."

"It's a disgrace to the ambulance--losin' men like that."

And, also, it made the men nervous and unreliable. It was a shock.

CHAPTER XVII. "OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND!"

It may be that I have never grown up properly. I'm a very poor hand at
pretending I'm a "grown man."

Impressions of small queer things still stamp themselves with a clear
kodak-click on my mind--an ivory-white mule's skull lying in the sand
with green beetles running through the eye-holes... anything--trivial,
childlike details.

I remember reading an article in a magazine which stated that under
fire, and more especially in a charge, a man moves in a whirl of
excitement which blots out all the small realities around him, all the
"local colour." He remembers nothing but a wild, mad rush, or the tense
intensity of the danger he is in.

It is not so. The greater the danger and the more exciting the position
the more intensely does the mind receive the imprint of tiny commonplace
objects.

Memories of Egypt and the Mediterranean are far more a jumble of general
effects of colour, sound a