the beginning of January, when
I was sent off on the errand which I shall presently relate.

That is a brief summary of my military record in the latter part of
1917. I am not going to enlarge on the fighting. Except for the days of
the Polygon Wood it was neither very severe nor very distinguished, and
you will find it in the history books. What I have to tell of here is
my own personal quest, for all the time I was living with my mind
turned two ways. In the morasses of the Haanebeek flats, in the slimy
support lines at Zonnebeke, in the tortured uplands about Flesquieres,
and in many other odd places I kept worrying at my private conundrum.
At night I would lie awake thinking of it, and many a toss I took into
shell-holes and many a time I stepped off the duckboards, because my
eyes were on a different landscape. Nobody ever chewed a few wretched
clues into such a pulp as I did during those bleak months in Flanders
and Picardy.

For I had an instinct that the thing was desperately grave, graver even
than the battle before me. Russia had gone headlong to the devil, Italy
had taken it between the eyes and was still dizzy, and our own
prospects were none too bright. The Boche was getting uppish and with
some cause, and I foresaw a rocky time ahead till America could line up
with us in the field. It was the chance for the Wild Birds, and I used
to wake in a sweat to think what devilry Ivery might be engineering. I
believe I did my proper job reasonably well, but I put in my most
savage thinking over the other. I remember how I used to go over every
hour of every day from that June night in the Cotswolds till my last
meeting with Bullivant in London, trying to find a new bearing. I
should probably have got brain-fever, if I hadn't had to spend most of
my days and nights fighting a stiffish battle with a very watchful Hun.
That kept my mind balanced, and I dare say it gave an edge to it; for
during those months I was lucky enough to hit on a better scent than
Bullivant and Macgillivray and Blenkiron, pulling a thousand wires in
their London offices.

I will set down in order of time the various incidents in this private
quest of mine. The first was my meeting with Geordie Hamilton. It
happened just after I rejoined the brigade, when I went down to have a
look at our Scots Fusilier battalion. The old brigade had been roughly
handled on 31st July, and had had to get heavy drafts to come anywhere
near strength. The Fusili