“That’s nothing to jump at,” he said to Falcon, scornfully. “That was just one of our own heavies going off behind the hedge there.”

      Falcon was humiliated. He was certainly afraid, as they marched towards the rumble of guns. He was even more afraid of showing his fear.

      Sardonically he looked back to Shorncliffe. Three weeks ago he had been eating his heart out there, resenting the fact that, as a very junior supernumerary subaltern, he had been left at the base with the reserve battalion. He was bitter then because he was not in France, at Ypres, at Langemarck. Well, if he had been at Langemark he wouldn’t be here now. The battalion had gone into the trenches then over a thousand strong, had come out with two hundred and seventy. Had gone in with twenty-one officers, had come out with two. No subalterns!…