Two or three
other soldiers were there, in whose artless talk McPhail joined
lustily. Doggie, unobtrusive at the end of the bar, maintained a
desultory and uncomfortable conversation with the barmaid, who was of
the florid and hearty type, about the weather.

Some days later, McPhail again made allusion to Durdlebury. Doggie
again confounded it.

"I don't want to hear of it or think of it," he exclaimed, in his
nervous way, "until this filthy horror is over. They want me to get
leave and go down and stay. They're making my life miserable with
kindness. I wish they'd let me alone. They don't understand a little
bit. I want to get through this thing alone, all by myself."

"I'm sorry I persuaded you to join a regiment in which you were
inflicted with the disadvantage of my society," said Phineas.

Doggie threw out an impatient arm. "Oh, you don't count," said he.

A few minutes afterwards, repenting his brusqueness, he tried to
explain to Phineas why he did not count. The others knew nothing about
him. Phineas knew everything.

"And you know everything about Phineas," said McPhail grimly. "Ay, ay,
laddie," he sighed, "I ken it all. When you're in Tophet, a
sympathetic Tophetuan with a wee drop of the milk of human kindness is
more comfort than a radiant angel who showers down upon you, from the
celestial Fortnum and Mason's, potted shrimps and caviare."

The sombreness cleared for a moment from Doggie's young brow.

"I never can make up my mind, Phineas," said he, "whether you're a
very wise man or an awful fraud."

"Give me the benefit of the doubt, laddie," replied McPhail. "It's the
grand theological principle of Christianity."

Time went on. The regiment was moved to the East Coast. On the journey
a Zeppelin raid paralysed the railway service. Doggie spent the night
under the lee of the bookstall at Waterloo Station. Men huddled up
near him, their heads on their kit-bags, slept and snored. Doggie
almost wept with pain and cold and hatred of the Kaiser. On the East
Coast much the same life as on the South, save that the wind, as if
Hun-sent, found its way more savagely to the skin.

Then suddenly came the news of a large draft for France, which
included both McPhail and Shendish. They went away on leave. The
gladness with which he welcomed their return showed Doggie how great a
part they played in his new life. In a day or two they would depart
God knew whither, and he would be left in dreadful loneliness.