d which he did not explain, but which interested the men
sufficiently to keep them awake for a while discussing it in low
voices.

I was at once too shy to ask questions and too sleepy to listen
attentively. Here was war, I told myself, and I was in it.
To be sure, I had not yet seen a shot fired, nor--save for the
infrequent boom of a gun beyond the hill--had I heard one: and yet
all my ideas of war were undergoing a change. My uppermost sense--
odd as it may seem--was one of infinite protection. It seemed
impossible that, with all these cheerful men about me, joking and
swearing, I could come to much harm. It surprised me, after my
months of yearning and weeks of tramping to reach this army, to
discover how little my presence was regarded even in my own
regiment. The men took me for granted, asking no questions.
I might have strolled in upon them out of nowhere, with my hands in
my pockets. And the officers, it appeared, were equally incurious.
Captain Lockhart, commanding the company, had scarcely flung me a
look. The Colonel I had not seen: the Adjutant had dismissed me to
the devil: and Archibald Plinlimmon had treated me as I have told.
All this indifference contained much comfort. I began to understand
the restfulness of a great army--a characteristic left clean out of
account in a boy's imaginings, who thinks of war as a series of
combats and brilliant personal efforts at once far more glorious and
more terrifying than the reality.

So I dreamed, secure, until awakened by my comrades' voices, lifted
all together and all excitedly questioning Sergeant Henderson, whose
head and shoulders intruded through the flap-way.

"Light Company and Number 3," he was announcing.

"Blasted favouritism!" swore the man next to me. "Ain't there no
other battalion company in the regiment, that Number 3's been picked
for special twice now in four days?"

"The Major's sweet on 'em, that's why," snarled another.

"I ain't saying nothing against the Bobs. But what's the matter with
_us_, I'd like to know? Why Number 3 again? Ugh, it makes me sick!"

"Our fun'll come later, lads," said the sergeant cheerfully.
"When you reach _my_ years you'll have learnt to wait. Now, if you'd
asked _me_, I'd have chosen the grenadiers: they're every bit as good
as a light company for this work."

"Ay--grenadiers and Number 4. Why not? It's cruel hard."

I asked in my ignorance what was happening. My neighbour turned to
me