flicker, and turned the grey-green canvas
walls into a mass of mottled shadows. The floor canvas was muddy from
the tramping of many feet bringing in the constant dribble of
casualties from the line. In my tent there was no one very bad at the
time, except a boy with his shoulder half-blown off by a whizz-bang,
who lay in a drugged sleep at the far end. The majority were influenza,
bronchitis, and trench-fever--waiting to be moved to the base, or
convalescent and about to return to their units.

A small group of us dined off tinned chicken, stewed fruit, and radon
cheese round the smoky stove, where two screens manufactured from
packing cases gave some protection against the draughts which swept
like young tornadoes down the tent. One man had been reading a book
called the _Ghost Stories of an Antiquary_, and the talk turned on the
unexplainable things that happen to everybody once or twice in a
lifetime. I contributed a yarn about the men who went to look for
Kruger's treasure in the bushveld and got scared by a green
wildebeeste. It is a good yarn and I'll write it down some day. A tall
Highlander, who kept his slippered feet on the top of the stove, and
whose costume consisted of a kilt, a British warm, a grey hospital
dressing-gown, and four pairs of socks, told the story of the Camerons
at First Ypres, and of the Lowland subaltern who knew no Gaelic and
suddenly found himself encouraging his men with some ancient Highland
rigmarole. The poor chap had a racking bronchial cough, which suggested
that his country might well use him on some warmer battle-ground than
Flanders. He seemed a bit of a scholar and explained the Cameron
business in a lot of long words.

I remember how the talk meandered on as talk does when men are idle and
thinking about the next day. I didn't pay much attention, for I was
reflecting on a change I meant to make in one of my battalion commands,
when a fresh voice broke in. It belonged to a Canadian captain from
Winnipeg, a very silent fellow who smoked shag tobacco.

'There's a lot of ghosts in this darned country,' he said.

Then he started to tell about what happened to him when his division
was last back in rest billets. He had a staff job and put up with the
divisional command at an old French chateau. They had only a little bit
of the house; the rest was shut up, but the passages were so tortuous
that it was difficult to keep from wandering into the unoccupied part.
One night, he sai