IV

The defenders were ready. The trenches were finished: "A" and "B" had

adjusted their elbow-rests to their liking, and blank ammunition had

been served out. Orders upon the subject of firing were strict.

"We won't loose off a single shot until we actually _see_ you,"

Captain Blaikie had said to Captain Mackintosh. "That will teach your

men to crawl upon their little tummies, and ours to keep their eyes

skinned."

(Captain Wagstaffe's string alarm had been an afterthought. At least,

it was not mentioned to the commander of the attack.)

Orders were given that the men were to take things easily for half an

hour or so, as the attack could not possibly be developed within that

time. The officers established themselves in a splinter-proof shelter

at the back of the supporting trench, and partook of provender from

their haversacks.

"I don't suppose they'll attack much before nine," said the voice of

a stout major named Kemp. "My word, it is dark in here! _And_ dull!

Curse the Kaiser!"

"I don't know," said Wagstaffe thoughtfully. "War is hell, and all

that, but it has a good deal to recommend it. It wipes out all the

small nuisances of peace-time."

"Such as--!"

"Well, Suffragettes, and Futurism, and--and--"

"Bernard Shaw," suggested another voice. "Hall Caine--"

"Yes, and the Tango, and party politics, and golf-maniacs. Life and

Death, and the things that really are big, get viewed in their proper

perspective for once in a way."

"And look how the War has bucked up the nation," said Bobby Little,

all on fire at once. "Look at the way girls have given up fussing over

clothes and things, and taken to nursing."

"My poor young friend," said the voice of the middle-aged Kemp, "tell

me honestly, would you like to be attended to by some of the young

women who have recently taken up the nursing profession?"

"Rather!" said Bobby, with thoughtless fervour.

"I didn't say _one_," Kemp pointed out, amid laughter, "but _some_.

Of course we all know of one. Even I do. It's the rule, not the

exception, that we are dealing with just now."

Bobby, realising that he had been unfairly surprised in a secret, felt

glad that the darkness covered his blushes.

"Well, take my tip," continued Kemp, "and avoid amateur ministering

angels, my son. I studied the species in South Africa. For twenty-four

hours they nurse you to death, and after that they leave you to perish

of starvation. Women in war-time are best left at home."

A youthful paladin in the gloom timidly mentioned the name of Florence

Nightingale.

"One Nightingale doesn't make a base hospital," replied Kemp. "I

take off my hat--we all do--to women who are willing to undergo the

drudgery and discomfort which hospital training involves. But I'm

not talking about Florence Nightingales. The young person whom I am

referring to is just intelligent enough to understand that the only

possible thing to do this season is to nurse. She qualifies herself

for her new profession by dressing up like one of the chorus of

'The Quaker Girl,' and getting her portrait, thus attired, into the

'Tatler.' Having achieved this, she has graduated. She then proceeds

to invade any hospital that is available, where she flirts with

everything in pyjamas, and freezes you with a look if you ask her to

empty a basin or change your sheets. I know her! I've had some, and I

know her! She is one of the minor horrors of war. In peace-time she

goes out on Alexandra Day, and stands on the steps of men's clubs and

pesters the members to let her put a rose in their button-holes. What

such a girl wants is a good old-fashioned mother who knows how to put

a slipper to its right use!"

"I don't think," observed Wagstaffe, since Kemp had apparently

concluded his philippic, "that young girls are the only people who

lose their heads. Consider all the poisonous young blighters that one

sees about town just now. Their uplift is enormous, and their manners

in public horrid; and they hardly know enough about their new job to

stand at attention when they hear 'God Save the King.' In fact, they

deserve to be nursed by your little friends, Bobby!"

"They are all that you say," conceded Kemp. "But after all, they do

have a fairly stiff time of it on duty, and they are going to have a

much stiffer time later on. And they are not going to back out when

the romance of the new uniform wears off, remember. Now these girls

will play the angel-of-mercy game for a week or two, and then jack up

and confine their efforts to getting hold of a wounded officer and

taking him to the theatre. It is _dernier cri_ to take a wounded

officer about with you at present. Wounded officers have quite

superseded Pekinese, I am told."

"Women certainly are the most extraordinary creatures," mused Ayling,

a platoon commander of "B." "In private life I am a beak at a public

school--"

"What school?" inquired several voices. Ayling gave the name, found

that there were two of the school's old boys present, and continued--

"Just as I was leaving to join this battalion, the Head received

a letter from a boy's mother intimating that she was obliged to

withdraw her son, as he had received a commission in the army for the

duration of the war. She wanted to know if the Head would keep her

son's place open for him until he came back! What do you think of

that?"

"Sense of proportion wasn't invented when women were made," commented

Kemp. "But we are wandering from the subject, which is: what

advantages are we, personally, deriving from the war? Wagger, what are

you getting out of it?"

"Half-a-crown a day extra pay as Assistant Adjutant," replied

Wagstaffe laconically. "Ainslie, wake up and tell us what the war

has done for you, since you abandoned the Stock Exchange and took to

foot-slogging."

"Certainly," replied Ainslie. "A year ago I spent my days trying to

digest my food, and my nights trying to sleep. I was not at all

successful in either enterprise. I can now sit down to a supper of

roast pork and bottled stout, go to bed directly afterwards, sleep all

night, and wake up in the morning without thinking unkind things

of anybody--not even my relations-in-law! Bless the Kaiser, say I!

Borrodaile, what about you? Any complaints?"

"Thank you," replied Borrodaile's dry voice; "there are no complaints.

In civil life I am what is known as a 'prospective candidate.' For

several years I have been exercising this, the only, method of

advertising permitted to a barrister, by nursing a constituency. That

is, I go down to the country once a week, and there reduce myself to

speechlessness soliciting the votes of the people who put my opponent

in twenty years ago, and will keep him in by a two thousand majority

as long as he cares to stand. I have been at it five years, but so far

the old gentleman has never so much as betrayed any knowledge of my

existence."

"That must be rather galling," said Wagstaffe.

"Ah! but listen! Of course party politics have now been merged in the

common cause--see local organs, _passim_--and both sides are working

shoulder to shoulder for the maintenance of our national existence."

"_Applause!_" murmured Kemp.

"That is to say," continued Borrodaile with calm relish, "my opponent,

whose strong suit for the last twenty years has been to cry down the

horrors of militarism, and the madness of national service, and the

unwieldy size of the British Empire, is now compelled to spend his

evenings taking the chair at mass meetings for the encouragement of

recruiting. I believe the way in which he eats up his own previous

utterances on the subject is quite superb. On these occasions I always

send him a telegram, containing a kindly pat on the back for him and

a sort of semi-official message for the audience. He has to read this

out on the platform!"

"What sort of message?" asked a delighted voice.

"Oh--_Send along some more of our boys. Lord Kitchener says there

are none to touch them. Borrodaile, Bruce and Wallace Highlanders_.

Or--_All success to the meeting, and best thanks to you personally for

carrying on in my absence. Borrodaile, Bruce and Wallace Highlanders_.

I have a lot of quiet fun," said Borrodaile meditatively, "composing

those telegrams. I rather fancy"--he examined the luminous watch on

his wrist--"it's five minutes past eight: I rather fancy the old thing

is reading one now!"

The prospective candidate leaned back against the damp wall of the

dug-out with a happy sigh. "What have you got out of the war, Ayling?"

he inquired.

"Change," said Ayling.

"For better or worse?"

"If you had spent seven years in a big public school," said Ayling,

"teaching exactly the same thing, at exactly the same hour, to exactly

the same kind of boy, for weeks on end, what sort of change would you

welcome most?"

"Death," said several voices.

"Nothing of the kind!" said Ayling warmly. "It's a great life, if you

are cut out for it. But there is no doubt that the regularity of the

hours, and the absolute certainty of the future, make a man a bit

groovy. Now in this life we are living we have to do lots of dull or

unpleasant things, but they are never quite the same things. They

are progressive, and not circular, if you know what I mean; and the

immediate future is absolutely unknown, which is an untold blessing.

What about you, Sketchley?"