deck-rail, and had fixed with his monocle the nearest recumbent
soldier. This soldier was just the other side of us, so the Major
was obliged to shout over our heads.

"What's your rank?" he repeated. "Come along, my man. Get a move on.
Jump to it. What's your rank?"

The Tommy, flurried by this surprise attack, climbed on to his feet,
came to attention, and said:

"Inniskillings, sir."

"Damn the man--_what_," cried the Major. "What's your _rank_? I
said."

"What, sir?" respectfully inquired the Tommy, whose powers of
apprehension had been disorganised by so sudden a raid.

The Major adopted two methods calculated to penetrate the soldier's
intelligence: he leant over the rail, and he spoke very slowly.

"What's--your--bloody--rank? Are you a general, or a private?"

"No, sir," answered the bewildered Tommy.

"Oh, God damn you to hell! What's your _rank_?"

"Oh, private, sir."

"Then, for Christ's sake, go and do some work. What are privates
for? Get that kit of mine from the quay."

The Major dropped his monocle on his chest, and looked down at us.

"Sorry, padre," he said, and walked away.

I watched till he was out of sight, and then said indignantly:

"So he jolly well ought to have apologised."

"And he _did_," retorted Monty. "Be just to him. It took me six
months--"

"He's off," thought I.

"--to get the Army's bad language into proportion. At first I opened
on it with my heavies in sermon after sermon. Then I saw proportion,
and decided on a tariff, allowing an officer a 'damn' and a man a
'bloody.' Winter and Neuve Chapelle taught me the rock-bottom level
on which we are fighting this war, and I spiked my guns. No one has
a right to condemn them, who hasn't floundered in mud under
shell-fire."

I think that, after this, we dropped into silence, and watched the
quay emptying itself of men, and the _Rangoon's_ decks becoming more
and more crowded, as the day declined. The Embarkation was
practically complete. The Devonport Staff Officers wished us "a good
voyage," and went home to their teas in Plymouth. And, just before
dinner, the gangway was hauled on to the quay. This was the final
act, for, though the ship was not yet moving, we had broken
communication with England.

Sec.2

At dinner, it being the first night afloat, the champagne corks
began to pop, and the conversation to grow noisier and noisier. By
the time the nutcrackers were busy, the more riotous subalterns had
reac