n the path of duty. For more than
a year I had never been out of khaki, except the months I spent in
hospital. They gave me my battalion before the Somme, and I came out of
that weary battle after the first big September fighting with a crack
in my head and a D.S.O. I had received a C.B. for the Erzerum business,
so what with these and my Matabele and South African medals and the
Legion of Honour, I had a chest like the High Priest's breastplate. I
rejoined in January, and got a brigade on the eve of Arras. There we
had a star turn, and took about as many prisoners as we put infantry
over the top. After that we were hauled out for a month, and
subsequently planted in a bad bit on the Scarpe with a hint that we
would soon be used for a big push. Then suddenly I was ordered home to
report to the War Office, and passed on by them to Bullivant and his
merry men. So here I was sitting in a railway carriage in a grey tweed
suit, with a neat new suitcase on the rack labelled C.B. The initials
stood for Cornelius Brand, for that was my name now. And an old boy in
the corner was asking me questions and wondering audibly why I wasn't
fighting, while a young blood of a second lieutenant with a wound
stripe was eyeing me with scorn.

The old chap was one of the cross-examining type, and after he had
borrowed my matches he set to work to find out all about me. He was a
tremendous fire-eater, and a bit of a pessimist about our slow progress
in the west. I told him I came from South Africa and was a mining
engineer.

'Been fighting with Botha?' he asked.

'No,' I said. 'I'm not the fighting kind.'

The second lieutenant screwed up his nose.

'Is there no conscription in South Africa?'

'Thank God there isn't,' I said, and the old fellow begged permission
to tell me a lot of unpalatable things. I knew his kind and didn't give
much for it. He was the sort who, if he had been under fifty, would
have crawled on his belly to his tribunal to get exempted, but being
over age was able to pose as a patriot. But I didn't like the second
lieutenant's grin, for he seemed a good class of lad. I looked steadily
out of the window for the rest of the way, and wasn't sorry when I got
to my station.

I had had the queerest interview with Bullivant and Macgillivray. They
asked me first if I was willing to serve again in the old game, and I
said I was. I felt as bitter as sin, for I had got fixed in the
military groove, and had made good there.