Alf's Button

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Alf'S Button

By W. A. Darlington

[Illustration: Decoration]

New York Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers

_First published in America by_ FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY _in 1920_

Foreword

It is a curious fact that since the death of the late lamented Aladdin, nothing seems to have been heard of his wonderful Lamp. Mr. Arthur Collins and other students of ancient lore have been able, after patient research, to reconstruct for us the man Aladdin in his habit as he lived and to place before our eyes a faithful picture of his times. Alike in literature and on the stage the Lamp plays an all-important part; and this makes it all the more strange that its subsequent history should have been so entirely lost.

I myself incline to the theory that Aladdin allowed the secret of his talisman to die with him, and that his widow disposed of an object whose presence in her husband's collection of articles of "bigotry and virtue" she had always resented, for what it would fetch. Its tradition once broken, we cannot suppose that an old battered lamp bearing on one portion of its surface a half-effaced inscription in forgotten characters would attract much attention as an _objet d'art_. In fact, it would be without value or interest except to a scholar learned enough to interpret the inscription aforesaid--which may be rendered in our tongue "Rub Lightly."

All this, however, is mere conjecture. It is based on my knowledge, accidentally gained, that a lamp of this description formed part of a job lot of "assorted curios" acquired by the Government with a view to subsequent reissue in the form of buttons for soldiers' tunics. This fact, taken in conjunction with the unusual events I am about to relate, does lend a certain color to the theory which I support; but of solid proof I can of course offer nothing.

Some of Alf Higgins' adventures have previously appeared in _The Passing Show_. The Editor of that paper, by the interest he showed in Alf, has incurred the grave responsibility of encouraging me to write this book about him.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE FOREWORD iii

I. Alf Higgins, Runner 1

II. Alf Cleans His Buttons 13

III. The Miracle Of The Planes 23

IV. The Misguided Zeal Of Eustace 36

V. Eustace Fetches Beer 49

VI. Isobel'S "Dream" 62

VII. Eustace Orders A Bath 80

VIII. Blighty For Two 97

IX. Lieutenant Donaldson Becomes Suspicious 115

X. Eustace Blunders Again 133

XI. The Vicar'S Wife Outraged 149

XII. Alf Receives 167

XIII. P. C. Jobling Investigates 191

XIV. Mr. Farr'S Misguided Zeal 206

XV. The Capture Of Master Bobby 229

XVI. Mrs. Grant'S Diplomacy 246

XVII. The Fate Of The Button 263

Copyright 1919 by Frederick A. Stokes Company

Alf'S Button

Chapter I

Alf Higgins, Runner

"Very well, sergeant-major, I think that's the lot. As far as we know, we'll take over the front line from the 4th Battalion in two days' time. I want you to warn all the men who aren't coming up with us that they are to go to the Transport lines to-morrow."

Captain Richards, commanding "C" Company of the 5th Battalion, Middlesex Fusiliers, rose to his feet, snapped shut his company roll-book and stretched himself. Sergeant-Major French, slipping a similar though less immaculate roll-book into his breast pocket, also rose to his feet (nearly bumping his tin-hatted head against the roof of the dug-out as he did so) and saluted.

"Very good, sir. Good night."

"Good night, French. Oh--one moment. I'd forgotten. I want one extra runner for Company Headquarters. Can you give me an intelligent man?"

The C.S.M. considered.

"There's only 'Iggins, sir," he said, in rather a dubious tone. "You know the man, sir--in Mr. Allen's platoon."

Captain Richards laughed.

"You can't call him intelligent, can you?"

"No, sir. But nearly every man in the company's fixed with a job, sir. 'Iggins ain't very bright, an' 'e won't do no more than you tell 'im. But 'e won't do no less, neither. 'E's a good soldier, and what 'e's told to do, 'e does. I don't think we can spare anybody better, sir."

"All right. Send him down to see me."

Richards was left to his thoughts, though he was not alone. From somewhere in the dim recesses of the dug-out came the sound of deep regular breathing, showing where Lieutenant Donaldson was making the most of an opportunity for rest. The remaining two officers of "C" Company had been out all day reconnoitering the piece of front line in which they were to relieve the 4th Battalion, and had not yet returned. Richards found himself wishing that they would appear. For one thing, he wanted his dinner; and for another, he was just a shade anxious, though he would not for worlds have admitted it. Of course, reconnoitering was always a long job, and there had not been much shelling going on during the day. Besides, Denis Allen--senior subaltern of the battalion and next on the list for command of a company--was far too old a hand to run into unnecessary danger. On the other hand, little Shaw had only just come out from England; this was his first time in the line, and he was just the type of keen young thing to do something foolish out of ignorance or bravado.

Richards himself, with Donaldson and the sergeant-major, had been over the trenches the day before. It is not usual for all the officers of a relieving company to see the ground for themselves; but this was a piece of line quite new to the Home Counties' Territorial Division, of which the Middlesex Fusiliers' Brigade formed part. The authorities therefore had deemed it advisable to use even more care than usual.

It was bitterly cold. The Great Frost of January and February, 1917--the coldest spring that France had known for a period of years variously estimated at twenty-one, a hundred and eight, and intermediately--was still in being. Richards turned up the collar of his British warm and longed for soup. He was just considering the advisability of shouting to the servants to serve his dinner at once, when there came a trampling on the stairs, a metallic clang, and some picturesque cursing. A moment later, Denis Allen emerged from the gloom, followed by little Shaw.

"Thank God for my tin hat," said Denis piously. "That's about the only thing it's good for. I'd have brained myself long ago on these stairs without it."

He divested himself of the article in question, as also of his equipment, glasses and trench coat; these he piled upon the recumbent form of Donaldson, bringing that warrior to a sudden and profane wakefulness.

"Here," said Allen to Shaw, "we have the company commander sitting at home in luxurious idleness, while we poor blighters do his work for him outside in the cold. If you've drunk all the whisky, Dickie, there's going to be a mutiny. I'm simply perishing. Where's the dinner?"

"Here, sir," said Private Corder, the senior servant, entering with the soup.

"Bless you, Corder. May your shadow never grow less."

"No, sir. Please, sir, Private 'Iggins wants to see you, sir."

"Me?" said Richards. "Oh, yes, of course. Send him down in a minute, but give me time to finish the soup first."

He warmed his fingers round the steaming mug.

"Well, Denis," he went on. "How did you like the front trenches?"

"Fine. Best lot I've seen. Top-hole duck-boards, good dug-outs, quiet bit of line. Couldn't be better, except for the cold. Shaw here was most impressed, and said he'd like to have shown his mother round them."

Second-Lieutenant Shaw grinned.

"Well, she gets the wind up rather, you see," he explained. "I think she imagines the front line with a perpetual barrage playing on it like a garden hose. I must say I didn't expect to see it _quite_ so peaceful myself. Or so clean and tidy."

"Ah, that's the frost. I tell you, we've been grousing enough lately about being here for the hardest frost within memory, but you've got to remember that it does keep the water frozen up in the trench walls. Let's pray the frost doesn't break while we're in the line."

Allen looked suddenly grave.

"I did notice a trickle of water here and there to-day," he said. "Dickie, I'm afraid we're in for a thaw. We shall be wading up in gum-boots in two days, you'll see. Here comes Higgins."

A nondescript private, with a straggling mustache and a pair of round, childish blue eyes, came into the light and saluted.

"Oh, Higgins," said Captain Richards, "you're to join Company Headquarters as a runner. D'you know the job?"

"Yes, sir. Carryin' messages."

"Yes. Well, now, I was only told to-day that I'd to have an extra one, otherwise you'd have been sent up with the rest to look round. However, you'd better take my trench map away with you and study the lie of the land from it. You can read a map, I suppose?"

"No, sir."

"Not at all?"

"No, sir."

"Good Heavens, I asked for an intell--however, there's nobody else. That will do, then, Higgins. Report to me before we move off, and do your best."

"Yes, sir."

Private Alfred Higgins departed, marveling at the strange chance that had elevated him to this responsible post. He was not sure whether he was pleased or otherwise. A runner's is a business admitting of startling variations. In a quiet sector of the line there may be no messages to take, or at least no shells to dodge in the process; but in a lively part of the front the runner's job is the most consistently perilous of all. Besides this, Alf Higgins had always considered it the wisest plan to steer carefully clear of those in authority. As a runner, he would be in constant personal touch with his officer.

He returned to his mates with mixed feelings, and confided his news to his bosom pal, Bill Grant, who deeply offended him by roaring with laughter at the mere idea.

As for Sergeant Lees, Lieutenant Allen's second in command of No. 9 Platoon, he seemed to regard Higgins' latest employment as marking the beginning of the end.

"If 'Iggins is a bright, intelligent man for a runner," he remarked bitterly, "I may be a blinkin' brigadier yet."

Lieutenant Allen's gloomy weather predictions duly came to pass. When the battalion moved up the thaw had begun in earnest. The water so long imprisoned streamed out of the walls of the trenches, and the disgusted men found themselves committed to wading five miles through communication trenches already a foot deep in water. This water grew visibly deeper as they went forward, till progress became difficult and most exhausting. Richards, plugging along doggedly in front of his company with the guide from the 4th Battalion, looked at his watch when they had covered half the distance and found that they were already an hour overdue. He hated being late with a relief, but greater speed was impossible. As the flow of water increased, the sides of the trenches began to fall in; the earth thus mixed with the water thickened it to a consistency which might be likened to very rich soup, and the pace grew slower still.

Now and then a dark cavern would yawn suddenly beside them, and a ghostly glimmer in the bowels of the earth would show an inhabited dug-out; and as the relieving party squelched slowly past, the water in the trench would be forced above the level of the dug-out entrance, and would flow thundering down the staircase like a miniature Niagara. Terrible objurgations from beneath would express the inmost thoughts of some weary warrior rudely awakened from sleep by the impact of a cold wave of muddy water against the back of his neck. Sympathetic, but powerless to avoid continuous repetition of the offense, the company plodded on.

At last, four hours behind the time fixed, a husky voice out of the darkness informed Richards that he had reached his destination.

Some time elapsed before everything had been satisfactorily handed over and explained to the incoming company, but at last the 4th men splashed thankfully off--to cause another series of Niagaras to descend upon the indignant warrior aforesaid--leaving Captain Richards entirely responsible for several hundred yards of the British front.

It was at this point, when the Company Headquarters went off to their comparatively dry dug-out, leaving the rest of the company to their miserable vigil on the surface, that Private Higgins realized that the runner's lot can be a very happy one.

This opinion grew more and more pronounced as time went on. Officers relieved each other in the front line, coming off duty covered with wet clay nearly to the waist and scraping their breeches clean with their knives before lying down to snatch a little rest; while he--Higgins--lay warm and dry, with nothing to do but eat and sleep.

All was quiet up above; both armies were far too much occupied with their own discomforts to think about adding to those of their adversaries. Possibly, thought Higgins in a flash of foolish optimism, his whole four days might be spent in a dry dug-out, eating and sleeping. But he must have omitted to touch wood, for at this point he heard his name called.

Captain Richards was holding in his hand a paper which the signaler had just handed to him.

"Higgins," he ordered. "Take this up to Mr. Donaldson in the front line at once, and bring back an answer. It's a report on the condition of the front line dug-outs. Understand?"

"Yessir!"

"Are your gum-boots all right?"

"Yessir!"

"Right! Carry on!"

Higgins clambered up the steps to the surface. Before he stepped over the dam which had been constructed round the dug-out entrance, he glanced round. The complicated canal system, which had been the trenches, looked even more forbidding by day than it had the previous night, and the water looked horribly cold. But there was nothing to be gained by waiting, and he waded off up a communication trench. Very soon he found himself in difficulties. The trench walls had continued to fall in, with the consequence that in places the thick soup had become glue. Once or twice he felt his foot sticking in the viscous stuff that had collected over the duck-boards, and had to struggle hard before he could release himself. Suddenly, without warning, he struck an even worse patch. Both feet were seized and held as in a vise. He fought hard, but only sank deeper. At last, quite exhausted, he felt his feet reach the duck-boards; and, thankful that at least he could sink no lower, he settled down with stoical resignation to wait till some one should come.

But an hour went by, and nothing happened; Higgins began to be hungry. Possibly, he thought, this particular trench had been found impassable, and traffic directed through other channels, in which case he might never be found. Appalled by this idea, he lifted up his voice.

"Hi!" he yelled. "'Elp!"

For sole answer, a German "fish-tail" whirred overhead and burst with great violence not far away. His own side remained as quiet as the grave.

Higgins began to lose his head.

"'Elp! 'Elp!" he bawled, a note of panic in his voice.

"There now, duckie!" came in soothing accents from round the corner in front of him. "Mummie's comin'! What the 'ell's the matter?"

A gum-booted, leather-jerkined private came slowly into view.

"Why," he exclaimed, "it's old Alf! Thought you was on G.H.Q. staff, 'elpin' 'Aig, Alf. What's all the row about?"

"Bringin' a message up to the orficer, an' I got stuck. Been 'ere hours, I 'ave."

"Stuck in the 'Glue-Pot,' that's what you 'ave, ole son," said Private Bill Grant cheerfully. "You must 'ave been a mug to use this way. Every one's usin' number One-Eight-Oh now; it's deeper, but not so sticky. The officer brought that message up 'isself when 'e came on dooty. They was sayin' some nice things about you, I don't think. You're in for it, you are, when you gets out o' that."

Higgins was past caring.

"'Ere, Bill, can't you pull me out?" he pleaded.

"Not if I knows it. That's the Glue-Pot you're in. If I started pullin' you out, I'd get stuck there meself, that's all. You'll 'ave to stop till arter dark, an' we'll come along over the top and 'ave yer out with a rope. So long."

The unfeeling Bill kissed his not over-clean hand and disappeared round the corner. Silence--broken occasionally by the sharp crack of a rifle bullet or the explosion of a casual shell--settled down once more. Higgins sank into a kind of stupor....

* * * * * * *

"Hist!" said a slightly dramatic voice above him, and he woke to a consciousness that darkness had fallen, and that the rescue party was at hand.

"That you, sergeant?" he asked joyfully.

"Not so loud, you blinkin' fool!" whispered Sergeant Lees fervently. "It ain't daylight now. The Boche 'as the wind up proper, an' if 'e 'ears you there'll be 'ell on. Catch 'old o' this rope. Now then, lads, ready? 'Eave!"

Higgins felt the rope tighten. Then came an almost intolerable strain on his body as the six panting figures up above opposed their joint strength to the passive resistance of his firmly-embedded gum-boots. Something had to give somewhere. That something turned out to be Higgins' old pair of braces, which had been forced to undertake the support of the said boots in addition to their usual responsibility. They snapped suddenly. The tug-of-war party collapsed in a heap, and Alf shot into the air like a cork from a champagne-bottle (leaving his trousers behind him) and fell again into the trench beside his tenantless and immovable boots.

He owed it to the quick wit of Sergeant Lees that he did not become bogged once more. His legs were already sinking in the ooze of the Glue-Pot when the sergeant leaned over, seized him by the coat collar and dragged him up by main force, just as his jacket split along its whole length with a rending sound. A Boche machine-gunner, much alarmed at the highly unusual sounds proceeding from the British lines, began to enquire into the matter. The shell-hole into which Alf rolled for safety happened to be full of filthy water, icy cold.

Chapter II

Alf Cleans His Buttons

When the battalion moved out of the line the appearance of Private Higgins could not be described as smart. The only person who attempted to describe it at all was the company sergeant-major; he did it rather well.

Higgins did not spend the remainder of his tour of duty in the condition of indecorous discomfort in which he was hauled from the Glue-Pot. On crawling out of his shell-hole, he first rescued his trousers with some difficulty from inside his derelict thigh-boots, and then made his way to the dressing-station--a large dug-out--where he was dried and his torn jacket was roughly repaired. For the rest of his time he wore the felt-lined leather jerkin which he had forgotten to take with him on his former adventure; but as luck would have it he was not required on any further errand.

The battalion left its trenches--handed over thankfully to the North Surreys--about midnight, eight days after it had moved in. Its numbers, in spite of the mildness of Fritz, had been sadly depleted. All precautions notwithstanding, a large number of men had succumbed to trench feet, and the remainder could scarcely do more than crawl. They made their way painfully as far as the reserve trenches, and next day they reached a village some miles behind the line, where they found themselves in quite comfortable billets--the men in huts, the officers in farms and cottages. The hut allotted to "C" Company contained a complicated erection in wood and wire-netting, which provided two tiers of bedsteads down almost the entire length of each side. There was, however, a small space at one end, screened off with waterproof sheets; this was appropriated to the joint use of the C.S.M. and the C.Q.M.S.

As soon as the battalion was settled in, the usual business began of repairing the ravages of the trenches and transforming a crew of ragged, bearded scaramouches back into self-respecting members of a smart regiment.

Captain Richards paraded his company in front of its billet, and surveyed it more in sorrow than in anger. He himself and his officers had managed, in some wonderful way, to turn themselves out as spotless as if they had just strolled in from Piccadilly. But they had the advantage over the men of carrying spare suits of clothes in their valises, and of possessing servants.

"Well, 'C' Company," remarked its Commander. "The quartermaster is going to take you in hand this afternoon, and I don't envy him his job. You'll hand in your tin hats and your jerkins, and you'll draw service caps, badges and shoulder-titles. Those of you who need new things must take the opportunity of getting them. Private Higgins, for instance, needs a new tunic."

There was a roar of laughter, for Higgins' misadventure in the communication trench was the company's latest family joke.

"I see," continued Richards, grinning, "that he's mended his old one with a piece of rope. Well, that won't do for me after to-day. To-morrow I expect to see the company something like itself. March 'em off, Sergeant-Major French; I'll be coming along shortly."

Clothing parade was a lengthy business. Most of the battalion seemed to need clothes, and the quartermaster's overworked staff appeared to regard each new application as a personal insult. At last Higgins obtained his new tunic, and started back to his billet with this and his other issues. On the way he passed a small cottage marked "Estaminet"; he entered and indulged in a miniature orgy of very light French beer.

It was getting late when he reached the billet, and in order to make the most of the fading light he sat down outside the hut to bring the buttons of his new jacket to a condition fit to be inspected by C.S.M. French on the following morning.

He made an excellent job of the top button and then, recharging his tooth-brush (presented to him for quite another purpose by a paternal government) with polish, he prepared to tackle the second. But the instant he touched it there was a sudden roaring sound, and a strange hot wind sprang up, tossing into the air a swirling column of dust which half choked Alf and wholly blinded him. He dropped tooth-brush, polish and tunic to the ground and clapped his hands to his agonized eyes.

The wind died down again as suddenly as it had come, and the swirling dust settled; and there came to Alf, still struggling to empty his streaming eyes of pieces of grit, an eerie sense that he was not alone. Some presence was beside him--something that he must clear his eyes and look at, yet dreaded to see.

Suddenly a sepulchral voice spoke.

"What wouldst thou have?" it said.

Alf felt that he must _see_, or go mad. With his two hands he opened an inflamed eye--and with great difficulty restrained himself from uttering a loud yell of terror. He was confronted by a huge and hideous being of a type he had believed to exist only in the disordered imaginations of story-tellers. The being, seeing that he had Alf's undivided--even petrified--attention, bowed impressively.

"What wouldst thou have?" he repeated in a deep, booming voice. "I am ready to obey thee as thy slave, and the slave of any who have that Button in their possession; I, and the other slaves of the Button."

"Gawd!" exclaimed Alf, in horror. "Strike me pink!"

The strange being looked surprised, but bowed yet lower.

"To be stricken pink? Verily my Lord's request is strange! Nevertheless, his wish is my command."

He disappeared.

Alf stared open-mouthed at the spot where the apparition had stood. Then in a sudden panic at what he took to be the effect of French beer after the enforced abstemiousness of the trenches, he rushed into the hut and rolled himself up in his blanket. He felt at once aggrieved and frightened; for he was not drunk nor even exhilarated, and yet he had got to the far more advanced stage of "seeing things." He gave no answer to any enquiries after his health nor any other sign of life until the orderly sergeant came round at _réveillé_ next morning.

"Now then, 'Iggins, show a leg," said the N.C.O.

Higgins had been awake for some time. He felt all right, and had already assured himself by a cautious glance round that he was no longer seeing demons. He sat up, and flung his blankets cheerfully from him.

"Right-o, sergeant," he said.

The sergeant's eyes bulged. All that could be seen of Higgins--his face, hands and the part of his neck and chest not covered by his shirt--was one glorious shade of salmon-pink, shining and glossy as if from the application of a coat of Mr. Aspinall's best enamel.

"Come out o' that, quick!" said Sergeant Anderson, retreating hastily. "Corporal Spink, take this man along to the M.O. at once--don't wait for sick parade. It's measles and scarlet fever and smallpox and nettlerash all mixed up, you've got, me lad. 'Ere, keep yer distance."

The regimental M.O., nonplused and frightened, at once got into touch with the Field Ambulance and had Higgins--now in the last stage of panic and convinced that his end was near--removed to a Casualty Clearing Station. Then he descended on "C" Company's billet with some pungent form of chemical disinfectant, and rendered that erstwhile happy home utterly uninhabitable. The company, spluttering and swearing, tumbled out and ate its breakfast shivering in the open. If threats and curses could kill, Alf would have been a dead man fifty times over.

On his arrival at the C.C.S. his clothes were taken from him, and he was isolated for observation in a small ward; and a keen young medical practitioner named Browne--temporary captain in the R.A.M.C.--undertook his extraordinary case.

On finding that he did not immediately die, Alf recovered his normal spirits, and for a week he thoroughly enjoyed himself. He was a public character--all the medical officers within reach came and shook their heads over him. He felt perfectly well; his pulse and temperature were from the first normal; but his hue remained undimmed. An old doctor who chanced to arrive when Higgins was having his midday meal, got out his notebook and entered "Abnormally voracious appetite" as a salient symptom of the new disease; but this was a mistake. In fact, no further symptoms of any kind developed; and in the end Captain Browne, in despair, determined to give up the case and to send Alf to see a noted skin-specialist at the Base.

Accordingly Higgins' clothes (smelling strongly of some distressing fumigatory) were brought to him, and he was told to get ready for his journey. Observing with displeasure that the effect of fumigation had been to turn his brasswork nearly black, he produced cleaning materials and got to work to remedy this.

At the first touch he gave to his second button, once more that awful apparition arose before him, and the same sepulchral voice was heard.

"What wouldst thou have? I am ready to serve thee as thy slave, and the slave of any who have that Button in their possession; I, and the other slaves of the Button."

Alf's mind was whirling. He had by now half forgotten his previous sight of this supernatural visitor, or rather had accounted for it satisfactorily in his mind. But no theory of intoxication could hold good on this occasion, for Alf's only drink for the past week had been tea. The emotion uppermost in his mind, however, was fear that the doctor might come in and find the being there. He therefore sat up in bed and gasped out:

"'Op it!"

With a puzzled expression on his hideous countenance, the being began slowly and with obvious reluctance to disappear. He seemed to be doubting the evidence of his ears.

"'Ere, I say," called out Alf suddenly, as an idea struck him. "Arf a mo'!"

The being, who was still just visible as a faint murkiness in the atmosphere, took shape again with alacrity.

"What wouldst thou have?" he began once more. "I am ready to obey thee as thy slave and the slave...."

"Yes," interrupted Alf, who was in terror of the possible advent of the doctor. "You said all that before. What I want to know is, was it you that turned me this ruddy color?"

"Verily, O Master, the color is not the color of blood; and indeed, with thine own lips thou didst command me to strike thee pink!"

"Lumme!" said Alf, light breaking in upon him at last. "Well, if that's your idea of a joke, it ain't mine, that's all. You can just blinkin' well think again, if you want to make _me_ laugh. See?"

"Thy wish," said the Spirit, to whom Alf's idiomatic speech was just so much gibberish, "is my command. What wouldst thou have? I am ready to obey...."

"Stop it," said Alf in acute apprehension, his eye on the door. "Didn't you 'ear what I said? Put me right, for the Lord's sake, and then 'op it, quick. I can 'ear the doc. comin'."

Captain Browne entered. He was in a very despondent frame of mind. He was a keen and ambitious young man, and his failure to make any impression on Higgins' condition had been a great blow to his pride. Sorely against his will he was now about to own himself defeated.

He closed the door behind him.

There was an instant's pause. Then the officer, without a change of countenance, spoke quietly.

"Ah!" he said. "Then my last treatment _has_ had the effect I hoped for. It's a cure. You needn't go to the Base, after all."

The cure of Higgins' malady brought to Captain Browne much honor and renown. He became the first and sole authority on what came to be known as "Browne's Disease"; several thoughtful essays from his pen appeared in the foremost medical journals, detailing the course of the disease, the method of its cure, and the mental processes which had led to the evolution of that cure. He was asked to contribute an article on the same subject to a medical encyclopædia. Finally, he was mentioned in dispatches.

An order from the distant heights of the surgeon-general's staff was circulated to all medical officers, ordering them to forward weekly a return of the number of men under their care suffering from Browne's Disease. But neither they nor the distinguished inventor himself could find any. This was the more unfortunate because, if only he had been able to find another authentic case of the malady, he might have looked forward to Harley Street and a fashionable practice after the war. But in any case, his name, if not his fortune, was made.

As for Alf, he returned at once to his battalion, where he gave unsatisfactory answers to all questions. He was a man of little imagination, but it seemed that he was now in his own case beginning to link up cause with effect. At all events he refrained for as long as possible from cleaning his second tunic-button, and might have been seen now and again regarding it with awe not unmixed with alarm.

Chapter III

The Miracle Of The Planes

When Alf reached the 5th Battalion once more, he found it transformed. All signs of trench life had disappeared, and the men were recovering their swing and swagger. True, they looked a little harassed, but that was only natural seeing that they were in the middle of one of the periods of strenuous activity humorously known to those in authority as "rest."

His mates accepted Alf's reappearance among them without surprise--almost without comment. The fact that he had been in hospital suffering from a hitherto unknown disease did not excite them at all. Such men as did mention the matter took it for granted that he had had some new form of "trench fever." (Every malady developed at the front which is not immediately recognizable is disposed of by popular rumor under this convenient heading.)

This particular "rest" was expected to last still another fortnight when Higgins reported. The first week was to be devoted to a stiff training program, while the second was to embrace an equally energetic period of athletic competitions and games. Within an hour of his arrival the disgusted private found himself swooped upon by various enthusiasts and engaged to go into strict training at once, with a view to representing the platoon at football and the company in a cross-country race the following week. Practice games and trial runs were arranged to dovetail into each other with devilish ingenuity, until Alf began to consider the advisability of rubbing this mysterious button of his and obtaining a relapse.

He was unimaginative, and the vast possibilities latent in the magic button had not even begun to unfold themselves before his mind. One of his chief characteristics was a reluctance to mix himself up in matters he did not understand. He felt that in meddling twice already with supernatural and probably diabolical powers he had been very lucky to get off scot free; and the mere idea of ever encountering that fearsome being again filled him with apprehension. He avoided touching the mysterious button at all, either for cleaning or any other purpose.

But this state of things could not last. Lieutenant Allen was no martinet, but it was not many days before he stopped before Alf on parade and surveyed him with disfavor.

"This won't do, Higgins," he said. "Your brasswork is a disgrace. Look at that button! You will clean that up the moment you get off parade this morning, and I'll have a look at it this afternoon. See?"

"Yessir!" said Higgins dutifully. But he did not see in the least what was to be done. He could not leave his button untouched after what the officer had said, and he did not dare to clean it. In his efforts to solve this problem, he went through his drill movements with an air of preoccupation which excited Sergeant Lees to the verge of apoplexy. But he had his reward in an idea of--for him--surpassing brilliance.

Army custom decrees that when a soldier in uniform goes into mourning, he shall proclaim the fact to the world by covering the second button of his tunic with crepe, or some other black material. Obviously, then, Higgins' easiest way out of his dilemma was to kill some non-existent relative. His difficulty thus settled, he began to apply his mind to the business in hand just in time to save the sergeant's sanity.

The parade finished, Higgins set out to find C.Q.M.S. Piper. That important personage was conferring deeply with the company commander on some subject connected with the issue of rum, and Higgins had to wait; as bad luck would have it, by the time the conference was ended Sergeant-Major French had come up and was standing within easy earshot. Alf tried to pitch his voice so that the sergeant-major should not overhear him, and only succeeded in defeating his own end by becoming completely inaudible.

"Quarters," he said, "can you give me a ee oh ack uff?"

"Now then, my lad!" roared Piper, in a voice which commanded the instant attention of everybody in the hut, "don't whisper sweet nothings to me. Spit it out! What d'yer want? Piece o' what?"

Amid general interest the defeated strategist repeated his request.

"Bit of black stuff, Quarters."

"Bit o' black stuff? What for?"

"To go into mourning. My uncle's dead."

"Ho!" intervened C.S.M. French, suddenly waking to the full significance of Higgins' request. "Yer uncle's dead, is 'e? 'Ow d'yer know that?"

"I 'ad a letter this mornin', major."

"Ho! Well now, that's funny; because there 'asn't been no bloomin' mail in since Friday. An' as for mournin', your bloomin' button's gone into mournin' already, without needin' no black stuff. I never saw nothing like it! Now, look 'ere, 'Iggins, I 'eard Mr. Allen tickin' you off about it, this mornin', and it looks to me as if you're tryin' on a bit of a game. Yer uncle may be dead or 'e may not, but before the quartermaster gives yer a bit o' black, you've gotter show me that button so bright that I can see me blinkin' face in it. Now, get a move on!"

There was no help for it. The button had to be cleaned, this once at any rate. Afterwards Higgins could mourn his uncle without ceasing, and spirits from the vasty deep need no longer form an essential part of his matutinal preparations for parade.

As soon as dinners had been dished out, Higgins put on his kit, took his rifle, and slipped away to a quiet spot where a small mound screened him from observation from the camp, though it did not prevent him from keeping a look-out. There was still a full hour before parade. He sat down, and after a moment or two spent in summoning his courage he produced his button-stick and began to polish his button. He did not even look up when a sepulchral voice gave evidence that the dreaded Being had appeared.

"What wouldst thou have? I am ready to serve thee as thy slave, and the slave of any that have that Button in their possession; I, and the other slaves of the Button."

Alf continued polishing for dear life. After a moment's pause the voice spoke again.

"Great Master," it said. "Behold, thy slave is present."

But the great Master, perspiring freely with terror, averted his head and polished on. He had some wild hope that the spirit might realize that the summons he had obeyed was involuntary and, so to speak, unofficial, and would go away. The spirit, on the other hand, apparently took his master's behavior as being simply an exhibition of despotism; this was quite according to Oriental tradition, and greatly impressed him, so that when he spoke a third time his voice was humble and servile to a degree.

"O Master, Lord of Power," he said, "since thou dost not deign to acknowledge the presence of thy slave, but dost continue the summons whereby thy slave came hither, is it thy will that the other slaves of the Button, who are seven thousand in number, should be brought before thee?"

It is doubtful whether Higgins fully comprehended this rather involved sentence; but he understood enough to realize that unless he made up his mind to talk with this being he was threatened with the appearance of seven thousand other devils, quite possibly worse than the first. He dropped his button-stick hastily. "No," he said anxiously; "you'll do."

He turned and faced his slave and was astonished to find that his fear had passed. The mysterious being was much more terrible in anticipation than in reality; and the servility of his speech and bearing had unmistakably shown that he regarded Alf with respect almost amounting to reverence. Alf, his breast swelling with a new and very pleasant sense of self-importance, decided to take this opportunity of coming to some kind of understanding with his new follower.

"Look 'ere, chum," he said affably, "you an' me's got to 'ave a little talk. Now, just tell me, 'ow do I come to be your master?"

"Lord, I am chief of the slaves of the Button that was aforetime the Lamp. Whosoever may be Lord of the Button, him do I serve and perform all his will; I, and the other slaves of the Button."

"Lumme!" commented Alf, much impressed. "An' where was yer last place?"

"Master?" said the spirit, uncomprehending.

"'Oo didst you--thou--serve before you come to me?" interpreted the Master.

"The great prince Aladdin."

"Don't know 'im. Prince 'oo?"

"Aladdin."

"What--the pantomime feller? Lor', you must be gettin' on in years! Well, now, did this chap give yer a reference?"

The spirit looked puzzled, and Alf decided that in Aladdin's time servants could not have had characters. He continued his catechism.

"An' what's yer name, mate?"

"Abdulkindeelilajeeb was I aforetime, O Master, but now I am called Abdulzirrilajeeb."

"Gorblimey," said Alf blankly. "You don't expect me to do that when I speaks to yer, I 'ope!" Then after a pause he added, "I shall call yer Eustace."

The djinn looked pleased.

"In truth, O possessor of wisdom, it is a lordly name."

"'Tis well," replied the possessor of wisdom with a melodramatic wave of the hand. "Now, tell me. Yer always poppin' up an' askin' for orders--what is it you want to do? What's yer partickler line?"

"My Lord hath but to command," said the newly-christened Eustace with superb simplicity.

"Garn, what a whopper!" Alf snorted incredulously. He had an ingrained dislike of "swank" in any form; and he looked about him at once, seeking some impossible task with which he might upset this complacent creature's vanity.

His imagination failed utterly to respond to the sudden strain placed upon it. His eye wandered round the unedifying landscape and found no source of inspiration. In despair he glanced up at the skies, and there he found the idea he sought.

High in the air above the British lines--so high that they were only just visible--were two aeroplanes. That they were Boche and Briton, engaged in a duel, was plain; but which was which it was impossible to make out. No doubt an expert would have known at once by a dozen signs; but Alf's data for distinguishing friend from foe in the air began and ended with the official markings--the tricolor rings of the Allies or the German black cross painted on the wings of the machines. When these signs were not visible he worked, as did most of his mates, on the rough principle that if an aeroplane dropped bombs on you it was certainly a Boche, while if it refrained it was probably British.

He directed the djinn's attention aloft.

"Now then," he said in triumphant tones. "See them two airyplanes up there? Well, if yer so bloomin' clever, 'op up and bring down the Boche one to me 'ere."

Eustace disappeared immediately, and Alf, incredulous though he was that anything out of the ordinary was going to happen, gazed up at the two tiny machines, still diving and circling in their attempts to out-maneuver one another.

The duel was, however, nearing an end. As Alf gazed, one of the two suddenly turned tail and fled. The other gave chase, and seemed on the very point of victory, when suddenly the pursuing plane seemed to check in mid-air and began to descend.

Even to Alf's untutored eye there was something uncanny in that descent. The machine neither nosedived nor came down in the usual graceful spirals. Instead it sank slowly and very steadily straight downwards, in defiance of all known laws of aeronautics, directly towards the spot where Alf was standing.

Alf, petrified with astonishment, stood staring at the machine as it grew larger and more distinct. It was all true, then! The djinn had, it seemed, all the powers that he claimed. In a few moments Private Higgins would be in sole possession of a complete German aeroplane. For the first time in his career, military glory was in his grasp. He had had no thought, when he had given his command to Eustace, of anything but the difficulty of the task; but now he had a sudden joyous vision of the kudos he would gain when he should march the crew of his approaching captive into the company lines at the point of his bayonet.

He unslung his rifle, loaded it and fixed the bayonet. Then, assuming the "On Guard" position, he looked up once more at the machine, now only a few hundred feet above him; and he gave a gasp of horror.

On the underside of the wings, now plain to the view, were painted the familiar rings of red, white and blue. Eustace, even less skilled than his master, had brought down the wrong machine. Instead of saving a British airman from destruction Alf had only deprived him of a well-earned victory at the moment of triumph. The German, rejoicing at his incredible escape and marveling, no doubt, at his opponent's inexplicable collapse, was now out of sight and in safety above his own lines; while the Briton was just dropping ignominiously to earth, helpless in the grip of a muddle-headed spirit out of an Oriental fairy tale.

Higgins stood rooted to the spot as the 'plane came to earth beside him; out of it climbed two R.F.C. officers, both puzzled and exceedingly angry. They subjected their machine to an exhaustive examination and then stared at each other blankly.

"Not a thing wrong, Tony. It's uncanny!"

"Uncanny!" The young pilot was almost weeping with mortification. "To have that chap von Hoffmeister in my hands--the chap who's been the thorn in our flesh this last month--and then be done in by--by a bally miracle. It's damnable!"

Alf's knees trembled beneath him. He came guiltily to attention, wondering if the airmen could suspect his complicity in the affair.

The pilot's feelings suddenly boiled over again.

"My God!" he said thickly, "I'd like to kill somebody for this!"

Unconsciously he fixed Alf with a baleful glare.

"I'm--I'm sorry, sir," quavered Private Higgins, losing his head completely.

The observer laughed mirthlessly.

"Well," he said to Alf. "It wasn't _your_ fault, anyway. Come on, Tony, let's see if we can't find a mess somewhere. You'll feel better after a whisky. Not ..." he concluded, exploding in his turn, "that I don't think it's the rottenest bit of luck that ever happened."

"All right," said the pilot. "Here, you'll stand by the machine, will you? I'll tell 'em in the camp that I ordered you to."

"Yessir!" said Alf, saluting; and he thankfully watched them go towards the camp.

As soon as they were out of sight, Alf rubbed his button. The djinn appeared, wearing a self-satisfied smirk at the striking proof of his powers his new master had just received.

"What wouldst thou have? I am ready to obey thee as thy...."

"Cut out the song an' dance, yer blinkin' fool," said Alf fiercely. "See what you gone an' bin an' done. This 'ere's a British plane--savvy? I told yer to bring a Boche one--them what 'as the black crosses. I b'lieve yer a bally spy, I do. 'Ere, git out o' me sight!"

The djinn vanished in silence. The instant he was gone Alf began to regret the lengths to which his tongue had led him. How had he dared to speak so to a creature possessing unlimited powers? He began to feel cold with apprehension. What would happen next?

At this point he saw a tremendous commotion in the camp. Men poured out of the huts and stared skywards, gesticulating and shouting. Alf looked upwards and saw the cause of their excitement. Fully a dozen German aeroplanes were converging on Alf from different quarters of the sky, each one helpless in the grip of the same power that had brought the British machine to earth.

It was Eustace's wholesale Oriental method of making reparation. One by one the machines came to earth, until all twelve were arranged in a neat row beside the original victim. The dazed German crews scrambled out, looking for somebody to whom to surrender; but first, as was their duty, they set fire to their machines. There was nobody to prevent them, for though several hundred British soldiers were on the way at the double, not one was on the spot.

Alf had fled in panic; he skulked in retirement until the excitement had died down; his one desire was not to be connected in anybody's mind with the extraordinary and inexplicable events of that afternoon.

When the German prisoners had been cleared away, and the normal routine had been restored, he returned to camp and displayed his button to C.S.M. French. Having received a grudging assent from that worthy, he drew his "bit o' black" from the quartermaster-sergeant, and draped it over his talisman. As he put the last stitch in place he made a mental resolve that it would be long before he would meddle again with a magic productive of such uncomfortable adventures.

Chapter IV

The Misguided Zeal Of Eustace

The word "rest" as used at the front has been described as being purely a technical term, bearing no relation whatever to the other word of the same name. Certainly during the last fortnight of this particular period Alf Higgins and Bill Grant found cause to realize the truth of this description.

A new brigadier had just been appointed to command the Middlesex Fusiliers Brigade. He was an upstanding young giant of thirty, and the main tenets of his creed were fitness and efficiency. In pursuit of the latter he organized strenuous sham fights over miles of country, and he urged upon his colonels that only by encouraging athletic contests on a hitherto unheard of scale could they hope to attain the former.

Alf and Bill were no athletes, but they continued to play football with more vigor than skill until their platoon was knocked out of the battalion competition. They bore their defeat with stoicism, hoping that they would now be allowed to assume the much more accustomed and congenial rôle of spectators. Instead of this they found themselves (to their inexpressible indignation) called upon to sustain the battalion's honor in cross-country runs under the eye of that speechless but efficient officer Lieutenant Donaldson.

In the evenings, however, they were free to extract what amusement they could out of life. The pierrot troupe, without which no division at the front considered itself complete, played to packed houses every other night in the Y.M.C.A.; while a cinematograph show had been rigged up in a barn. Each day, also, a limited number of passes to Amiens entitled such as were favored of Fortune to a blissful day's taste of civilization.

To the officers, however, it seemed sometimes incredible that any of the men could patronize these delights at all.

"I believe," said Richards to Allen one evening, "that every man in this company must write to every relation, friend, acquaintance or business connection he has in Blighty seven times in the week, just to spite us!"

The company letters had just come in to be censored. Donaldson had gone to a Sports Committee meeting, and Shaw, as mess president, was in Amiens restocking the larder.

"Lord, what a pile!" said Allen, sitting down at the table and beginning his task. "It's lucky I've no letters of my own to write--or only a note."

He gave a sigh; the man at the front who has nobody in England to write to is not to be envied.

"I have, though," said Captain Richards. "My wife'll be thinking I'm dead if I don't write her a proper letter soon."

He also took a handful of letters and set to work.

"May I come in?" said a voice at the door. "Or are you too busy?"

"Come in, of course, major."

The second-in-command entered, glanced round and took in the situation.

"Don't let me interrupt you," he said politely. "I haven't come to see _you_ at all, so don't flatter yourselves. I wanted to see Denis's _Sketch_ and _Tatler_, that's all."

"On my bed, sir," said Allen.

"Thanks."

There was unbroken silence for some minutes. Then the major cast _The Tatler_ from him with an exclamation of disgust.

"I wish," he said, "that that grinning little idiot would stop advertising herself for a bit. You can't pick up a picture-paper without seeing her selling things or dressing up or generally pushing herself into the limelight. She wants smacking."

Both men at the table looked up.

"Who's the grinning idiot in question, major?"

"Isobel FitzPeter. Here you are--a whole page of her and her bally bulldog, labeled 'A famous Beauty--and Friend.' Same photograph in _The Sketch_, called 'Beauty and the Beast'! It makes me sick!"

Allen suddenly got up and went out of the room without a word, very red in the face. Richards and Major Parker stared after him, the former very embarrassed, the latter simply surprised.

"What's the matter?" asked the major blankly.

"I expect poor old Denis felt he might have used language unbefitting your rank if he'd stayed. You see--don't let on to a soul, mind--he's most frightfully gone on the FitzPeter girl."

"Good God, Dickie, what have I said? D'you mean they're engaged or anything?"

"Oh, no. I don't believe she knows him at all. He used to play cricket at her father's place, and they were rather pals then, I believe. But since she's grown up, they've never met. But you know how it is out here. If I hadn't had my wife to think about, I'd have gone mad long ago. Denis doesn't seem to have many feminine belongings of his own, so he's simply installed this girl as a kind of goddess. He seems to live for the illustrated papers--simply devours them, and cuts out her picture. This is all rather confidential, major."

"Of course. Poor old chap. You know, Dickie, I do happen to know the lady. In peace time she was as nice a kid as you could want to meet. If Denis hasn't met her since then, I don't wonder at him, because she's really frightfully pretty. But her head has been utterly turned. She acts as parlor-maid once a fortnight in a hospital my sister runs in Kensington, and she's more hindrance than help, because she never arrives in time, and she's always got some footling reason for wanting to go early. But her photograph in V.A.D. uniform gets published about once a fortnight, usually headed 'Nursing the Wounded,' or, 'An Indefatigable War Worker'! The worst of it is she's got brains if she'd use them; only she won't. A spoilt, thoughtless little idiot, and as pretty as they make 'em. Poor old Denis."

At this point Allen returned and resumed his work without a word. The major fell silent. Richards cast about for some subject to cover the awkward break in the conversation.

"D'you know when we go back to the line, sir?" he asked at last.

"Not settled. End of the week, I think. Look here, I've interrupted you fellows quite enough. Give me some of those letters."

"Thanks awfully, sir. You're a sportsman."

By dinner time the pile was finished, and Allen had time to write his note.

"DEAR PEGGY," he wrote,--

"Just a line to tell you I'm still alive, and hoping to remain so. You might write to me when you've time. In great haste,

"Your affectionate cousin, "DENIS.

"P.S. If you happen to see Miss FitzPeter, please give her my kind regards."

This missive he addressed to Lady Margaret Clowes, at an address in Mayfair. She was only a very distant cousin of Allen's, and there was, on the face of it, no particular reason why he should have written to her at all. The regularity with which he had recently done so, therefore, coupled with the unfailing manner in which the postscript contained a polite message to Isobel FitzPeter, had given away to Margaret the true state of affairs; and because she liked and admired her shy cousin, she had contrived to keep his name not too insistently, and yet quite firmly, before Isobel's mind. She had determined, also, that when next Allen should come home on leave, she would engineer a meeting between them.

If he had known this it would have filled him with joy, tempered with apprehension, for he was not blind to the fact that the Isobel he had known had developed into a new and rather formidable creature. She was now a public character, the last word in smartness, and sometimes rather a loud word at that. He felt that she was removed now to a sphere beyond his reach, for he was a very humble-minded person. Altogether, one way and another, he contrived to be acutely miserable when he had time to think about anything but his work, and he rather welcomed than otherwise the prospect of going back into the line.

In due course an operation order came through from Battalion Headquarters, setting forth in minutest detail the times at which officers' valises would be packed and sent to the transport, mess-boxes made ready, blankets tied into bundles and delivered to the quartermaster, billets cleaned and platoons ready to move. When the time came there was the usual air of hopeless confusion, the accustomed mutual recriminations between conflicting or overlapping authorities; and in the end--also as usual--the battalion marched out at the appointed hour, leaving behind it very little to show that it had ever been there.

The brigade was to take over the same part of the line it had last occupied; but in the three weeks' interval that had elapsed since they had been relieved, Hindenburg had carried out his famous "retirement according to plan," and our friends found themselves only just entering the shelled area about the point where, in the days of the Big Thaw, their front line had been.

The 5th Battalion this time moved straight up into the front line, where they were comparatively comfortable. The weather was still cold, but fine; the trenches--originally German property--had turned renegade and were now serving the British very efficiently against their old masters. The sector was still very quiet: to all appearance the enemy had gone away and left no address. Altogether things were very much pleasanter than last time up.

Alf, after his former fiasco, was no longer a "runner"; but his chum, Bill Grant, had been selected for this work, so that the two were no better off than last time, so far as being together was concerned. Alf felt lonely. None of the other men in his platoon took much interest in him. He wanted Bill's companionship--his contemptuous patronage of and his real affection for his slower-witted companion.

His loneliness increased daily, until it became acute; and at last one day, being on sentry-go in a bay all by himself, he bethought himself of his Button. His mates were snoring in a dug-out close by; no sign had been seen from the German trenches all day. He had strained his eyes across No-Man's-Land until he had begun to feel intolerably drowsy himself. If something did not happen soon, there was a danger that the officer or N.C.O. on duty might find him asleep at his post.

Eustace seemed to be his only chance.

He rubbed the Button.

"What wouldst thou have? I am ready...."

"'Op it, quick!" was Alf's startling rejoinder.

Eustace, looking upset, complied. He was beginning to wonder whether he was being victimized. This new Master of his who gave incomprehensible orders and then seemed far from pleased when the orders were carried out, also seemed to have a taste for summoning him merely for the pleasure of seeing him vanish.

But Alf had a better reason than this. He had heard voices further along the trench. A moment after Eustace had disappeared, Lieutenant Shaw came round the traverse with the N.C.O. on duty, in the course of his tour of inspection along the "C" Company front.

"Alone, Higgins?" asked the officer, with a hint of surprise in his voice.

"Yessir."

"I thought I heard voices."

"Only me 'ummin', sir."

"I see. All quiet?"

"Yessir! Nothin' doin' at all!"

"Well"--Second-Lieutenant Shaw had not yet shed his youthful pride at being in the thick of things, and puffed himself out a little and became most impressive--"you want to keep an extra sharp look-out from now until we stand-to at dusk. We've an idea that something's going to happen. Probably Fritz will try a raid. This quiet is very suspicious."

He passed on with the sergeant. As soon as he was well out of earshot, Alf recalled the spirit, who looked so hurt that his Master felt that an apology was due to him.

"Sorry, Eustace, but if the orficer 'ad seen you talkin' to me, there'd 'ave been trouble. Civilians ain't allowed in the trenches, 'cept with a special pass; so when anybody comes, you must 'op it without waitin' for orders. See?"

Eustace bowed gravely.

"Now, look 'ere," continued Alf, gazing earnestly over the parapet as he spoke, "I just bin thinkin' about yer. If you could only get out o' this 'abit o' practical jokin' an' so on, you might be quite a useful sort o' feller. Now, tell me fair, what can you do? I don't mean larkin' with airyplanes, but serious things."

"My Lord hath but to command."

"Yes, it's easy enough to say that, but I can't think o' things.... Now, s'posin' ... that is.... Look 'ere, what I really want is something to keep me safe if the blighted Boche comes over. Now, what can you show me?"

"Master, I comprehend not thy speech."

"Lumme, I speak plain enough English, I 'ope. I say, what I want is something to keep me safe if the Boche comes over. The Boche, you know! Fritz! The 'Un! The fellers across there, you blinkin' image! The Germans!"

"My Lord desires protection from his enemies."

"That's better, Eustace. Think it out, and you'll get there in time."

"It shall be so. Behold!"

An object appeared in the Spirit's hand.

"Behold, O Lord of Might, the helmet of invisibility. Clad in this thou canst be seen of no mortal eye. So mayest thou move among the hosts of the enemy, seeing all, yet seen of none."

"By gum!" commented Alf, much impressed, "that's a bit of all right. Shouldn't mind doing daylight patrols with that on. Knocks a tin 'at all to blazes."

He pondered a moment and began to see the disadvantages of the idea.

"The trouble is," he explained, "the orficer seems to think the 'osts of the enemy is goin' to move about _us_ just now. Where should I be then? They'd all think I'd 'ad the wind up and 'opped it. An' then, 'ow about shell-fire? Just bein' invisible won't stop no Perishin' Percies. What I want is something--well, you know what I mean. Can't you get me something to keep off the bullets?"

"Verily that can I," said Eustace, with an air suggesting that Alf was simply wasting his time with niggling details. "Just such a thing as thou desirest was aforetime in the treasury of the great King Uz; my spirits shall procure it for thee. Whoso weareth this can come to no hurt through weapons forged by man."

"That's the ticket, if Mr. What's-'is-name won't be wanting it for 'isself. 'E's probably 'elpin' with this 'ere War somewhere or other."

"Uz hath been dead these many cycles--upon him be peace!" returned Eustace. He raised his hand, and, with an awesome clang, a cumbrous suit of armor, complete in every detail, fell into the trench. The djinn wore an expression of mild triumph. This time, he seemed to think, even this strange new master of his must be satisfied. He was not in the least prepared for Alf's reception of his performance.

"Take it away," shrieked Private Higgins, in an agony at the idea of having to explain away such a phenomenon to his superiors. "Take it away, you blinkin' fool, and 'op it yerself. What the blazes d'you think yer doin'? 'Ere, get out of it, quick. Somebody's comin'."

Somebody was.

The whole of Number Nine Platoon, awakened from its slumbers, came tumbling out of its dug-outs, adjusting its gas masks as it came. A horrible ghoul, dimly recognizable through the windows of its respirator as Sergeant Lees, came and gibbered at Alf.

"What's up, sergeant?" asked Alf in amazement.

"Gas!" replied the sergeant, removing his mouthpiece for a moment in order to speak more clearly. "Why the 'ell ain't you got yer mask on? Didn't you 'ear the gong?"

Higgins realized with horror what had happened. The clang of the armor had been mistaken for a gas-gong by a sentry in the next bay, who had promptly given the alarm. He tried feebly to straighten matters out; but it was too late now. The word had spread; the Boche, seeing the commotion in our lines, had sprung to arms; and both armies stood tense, each convinced that the other was going to make a surprise attack. A heavy fusillade with rifles and machine guns, rifle grenades and trench mortars began, and in its turn spread along the lines with great swiftness. Then somebody put up an S.O.S. flare, and the guns, which had only been waiting for this invitation, joined in. For the next few minutes the Messina earthquake or an eruption of Vesuvius would have been welcomed as quiet interludes by Richards, Allen & Co.

Further back, astonished Staff-Officers were springing to the telephone to demand by what right this intense but unauthorized warfare was taking place, and what it was all about, anyway. Further back still, troops in rest billets looked up from their magazines or their letters home and thanked Heaven that they were not in the shoes of the poor blighters in the line.

Then both sides seemed to discover that nothing much was happening after all, and the whole thing died away as suddenly as it had begun. But that night the sentries were doubled, and as Higgins sulkily performed his extra hours of duty, his feelings towards his well-meaning but tactless familiar were such that he nearly brought his adventures to an untimely close by cutting off the Button and flinging it over the parapet.

Chapter V

Eustace Fetches Beer

After this sudden burst of excitement had died away, a watchful calm descended on the front line. "C" Company were relieved next day by "B" Company, and went into close support. Here they were in a zone more subjected to shell-fire than in the front line itself; but this worried them very little, as for the most part they spent their four days snugly in dug-outs, listening to the occasional dull thud caused by an explosion up above, and waiting in readiness to turn out at any moment in the event of a raid. One or two parties were called out to carry rations up to "B" Company, but the only casualty was a man who was hit in the arm by a shell-splinter, and departed for "Blighty" openly exulting in his good fortune.

On the fourth day the battalion was relieved and went back into Brigade Reserve. Here they were to stay for eight days while the battalion in the line completed its duty. What might happen after that was a matter for speculation, known only to Providence--and possibly (though not very probably) the Staff. Anyhow, the events of so dim and distant a future were a matter of supreme indifference to the rank and file. It was enough for them that for a week or so at any rate they would have deep, warm dug-outs, well back from the line.

As soon as the company settled in, Bill Grant returned to the platoon, his services as extra runner being no longer required. Alf would have welcomed him under any circumstances; but on this occasion he was specially glad to have his pal back again. He was worried and needed advice. He had, in fact, decided to take Bill into his confidence on the subject of Eustace, and was now simply waiting for an opportunity of a private and uninterrupted conversation with him. A _tête-à tête_, especially if it entails a practical demonstration of oriental magic, is not the easiest thing on earth for two Tommies in the forward area to arrange.

A kindly Fate assisted them, however. The particular system of trenches they were inhabiting, like all systems constructed by that industrious mole, the Boche, was honeycombed with deep dug-outs--far more than the 5th Battalion could possibly use. It occurred to the two warriors that it would be an excellent plan to find a disused and secluded specimen for their own private use. In such a haven Alf could unfold his portentous secret without fear of interruption, while Bill, who objected on principle to being put on working parties and fatigues, felt that the best safeguard against inclusion in these treats was an alibi. After a search they discovered a snug retreat in which they intended to spend as much of their spare time as possible, returning to their mates only at meal-times and other occasions when their absence might be noticed.

The afternoon was pleasantly mild, and for the first time the air seemed to contain a hint of Spring. Instead of retiring underground they sat in the entrance of their new home quietly smoking. As soon as their pipes were well alight, Alf broached the subject which was weighing so heavily on his mind.

"Bill," he asked. "D'yer believe in spirits?"

"Prefer beer."

"Not them sort o' spirits, I don't mean. I mean spooks. D'yer believe in spooks, Bill?"

"People what sees spooks," said Bill dogmatically, "is liars, or boozed."

Grant's attitude was unpromising, but Alf was determined to persevere.

"What would yer say if I told yer I'd seen a spook, Bill?" he demanded.

"I'd say you'd 'ad a drop too much," was the uncompromising reply.

"An' if I saw it when I 'adn't 'ad a drop at all?"

Bill turned and regarded him.

"Look 'ere, Alf 'Iggins," he remarked acidly. "Yer worse'n a bloomin' kid f'r asking yer blighted silly questions. If you got anything to say, for 'Eaven's sake spit it out an' 'ave done with it."

Thus adjured, Alf plunged into his story, omitting only his adventure with the aeroplanes, which he considered would be safer hidden even from Bill.

That gentleman heard him to the end without comment.

"I b'lieve it's up to me to take yer to the M.O.," he said at last seriously.

Alf was annoyed.

"Don't be a idjit. This is a _real_ spook, I tell yer!"

"Garn! You bin sleepin' on yer back an' dreamt it all. Why, this 'ere Aladdin you talk about--there never was no sich feller. 'E's just a bloke in a fairy story."

"Dreamt it!" repeated Alf indignantly. "Dream be blowed. I couldn't dream meself pink all over, could I?"

"No, but you could catch scarlet fever an' 'ave delirious trimmings on top of it," said Bill caustically. "But you can't make me see this blessed spook o' yours, any'ow."

This was a direct challenge, and Alf rubbed his Button. Bill's tin hat fell off.

"Lor'!" he said, sitting up straight.

"What wouldst thou have?" enquired Eustace. "I am ready to obey thee as thy slave...."

"'Op it," replied Alf feebly. He had forgotten to think out any excuse for summoning the djinn, and could think of nothing else to say. Eustace, his opinion of Alf obviously lower than ever, disappeared.

"Lumme!" said Bill. He smoked in silence for some minutes, deep in thought.

"Where the 'ell does 'e come from, and what does 'e do?" he asked at length.

"'Oo?"

"That spook, o' course."

"I dunno. I rubs me Button, an' 'e bounces in an' asks for orders. 'Alf the time I don't want 'im at all. An' if I do tell 'im to do things, 'e gets 'em all wrong. 'E don't seem to lave no common sense, some'ow."

Bill was following out some train of thought.

"Look 'ere, Alf," he said. "What can you remember about this feller Aladdin? What 'appened to 'im in the panto?"

Alf considered.

"There was a bloke sang something about a rose growin' in a garden. Pathetic it was," he announced after deep thought.

"Blighted fool!" commented Bill with pardonable heat. "I don't mean _that_. What 'appened to this chap, Aladdin, 'isself?"

"Oh, 'im! A bloomin' girl, 'e was, in the pantomime. I didn't take much notice what 'appened to 'im--married some one, I think."

"Yes, but 'oo?" asked Bill, with an air of playing his trump card.

"I dunno. Princess Something."

"That's what I remember. An' they 'ad palaces, an' jools, an' money, an' everything. An' 'ow did they get 'em, eh?"

"I dunno."

Alf was really being very dense. Bill tapped him impressively on the arm.

"Your spook brought 'em," he said.

"Eustace?"

"That what you call 'im? Yes, 'im."

They gazed at each other, Bill in triumph. Alf in astonishment; at last the latter found his voice.

"I never thought o' that kind o' thing!" he said.

"No, you're a proper thick-'ed," retorted Grant unkindly. "Now, you send for 'im an' make 'im do something useful for a change."

"What shall it be?"

"Mine," replied Bill, without hesitation, "is beer. Always was. An' mind, none o' that Govermint muck neither. Something with a bit o' body in it."

"Send _'im_ for _beer_?" whispered Alf in horror. He could not have looked more shocked if Bill had suggested sending the sergeant-major to buy him a paper. He had an instinctive feeling that Eustace was one to do things on a grand scale, and would resent being employed as a mere potman. He rubbed his Button nervously, and avoided Eustace's eye.

"Is it my Lord's desire that his servant should hop it?" asked the spirit, abandoning his usual formula. He was, he felt, just beginning to settle down to his new master's ways.

"No," said Alf, fixing his eyes on vacancy. "Bring me two beers, please, Eustace."

"Two biers, O possessor of wisdom?" repeated the djinn, wondering if his startled ears could have heard aright.

"Yes. Two beers, I said. And 'urry up."

Eustace bowed low, muttered "Thy wish is my command," and vanished. Almost immediately afterwards, with a dull thud apiece, two cumbersome and curiously carved stone sarcophagi fell side by side into the trench, which they blocked completely. Alf and Bill gazed open-mouthed first at the two sepulchers and then at one another.

"What the 'ell's this mean?" asked Bill at last.

Alf, mortified beyond measure at the failure of his attempt to impress his pal, gave a resigned gesture.

"What did I tell yer?" he asked. "That's the kind o' thing 'e's always doin'! No common sense."

"Well, p'raps 'e misunderstood yer. P'raps 'e thought you wanted...."

"Thought I wanted! Didn't I speak plain English? Ain't 'beer' plain enough for 'im? 'Ow can 'e 'ave misunderstood 'beer'?"

"Well, p'raps these 'ere things are called 'beer' in 'is language."

Alf snorted.

"I ask yer, do they look like it? No, it's just 'is fat-'eaded way."

He rubbed his Button fiercely.

"Take these blinkin' egg-boxes away, Eustace," he said. "An' pull yerself together. I asked yer for beer--stuff what you drinks, savvy?"

He made a gesture of drinking. The djinn, with a sudden light of comprehension in his face, bowed and vanished with the sarcophagi, to reappear a moment later with an enormous tray on his head. From this he proceeded to deal out a great number of covered metal plates, exactly as a conjurer produces strange objects from a top hat. He set them down in the trench, and with a final flourish brought forth an enormous silver flagon and two heavily chased goblets. These he placed with the other things, and disappeared.

"Ah!" said Bill, smacking his lips in anticipation. "This looks more like it. Bit 'olesale in 'is ways, ain't 'e? Seems to take us for the Lord Mayor's Banquet."

He lifted the cover from one of the plates and smelt the contents.

"Fish o' some kind," he said dubiously. "Smells funny. Never could stand them foreign messes."

Alf did likewise to another dish.

"Muck," he said succinctly. "Give me good ole roast beef an' mutton every time. I likes to know what I'm eatin', I do. Pour the drink out, Bill."

Thus adjured, Bill filled the goblets and passed one to Alf.

"Good 'ealth!"

"Good 'ealth!" chorused both warriors. Their heads went back in unison; also in unison, they gave a tremendous splutter of disgust.

"My Gawd!" said Alf thickly, "I'm poisoned! What the 'ell is it?"

"Tastes like a mixture of 'oney an' ink, with a dash o' chlorate o' lime," said Bill, apparently trying to shake the remains of the nauseous mixture from the roof of his mouth. "'Ere, 'ave that blinkin' spook o' yours back again an' tell 'im orf."

Once more Alf rubbed the button and summoned his familiar.

"What wouldst thou have," said Eustace, appearing promptly, but with a trace of resentment in his face, "I am ready...."

"Stow it!" said Alf. "You're a lot _too_ ready, seems to me. Why d'yer want to bring us all this bloomin' lay-out? I didn't order no food, an' if I 'ad I wouldn't 'ave meant un'oly messes like that. You're too blinkin' 'olesale in yer ways. Take it all away. An' as for drink, you've 'arf poisoned us with the muck you've brought."

"Lord of might," said Eustace. "These are of the choicest of the meats and the wines of Arabia."

"Gawd 'elp Arabia, then. An' I asked for beer, B-E-A-R, beer. D'yer mean to say they don't 'ave it in Arabia?"

Eustace shook his head.

"Poor blighters!" put in Bill. "No wonder they're 'eathens."

"Now, look 'ere, Eustace," said Alf instructively. "Beer is--er--beer is--well, it's.... I say, Bill, 'ow the 'ell can yer explain beer to any one as doesn't know what it is?"

"Well," said Bill. "It's brown stuff, made from 'ops an' malt an' such, an' you get it in Blighty--that's England, you savvy--in barrels. Just you 'op over there, an' you'll see. Or any one'll tell you."

This lucid explanation sufficed Eustace, for this time he disappeared with the scorned banquet, and returned in a twinkling with two foaming tankards.

Alf and Bill smelt the contents with grave suspicion, which changed at once to a happy foaming smile apiece.

"That's the goods!" said Alf.

"Ah!" said Bill, smacking his lips with deep satisfaction. "Ole Aladdin knew a thing or two, 'e did. Let's 'ave another o' the same an' drink 'is 'ealth."

"No, Bill. It'll 'urt ole Eustace' feelings. If you was a spook what could build palaces an' sich in 'arf a tick, would _you_ like to 'ave to go all the way to 'ell for two bloomin' pints? Besides we've kept 'im on the go pretty fair as it is."

"Make it 'ogs'eds, then."

But Alf was adamant.

"Very well, don't then," said Grant with sudden asperity. "But if yer won't oblige a pal in a little thing like that, w'y don't yer get on with it an' _do_ something? Fat lot o' good you done so far with yer pet devil! W'y, yer mighter stopped the 'ole war by now."

"Might I? 'Ow?"

"Easy enough. All you gotter do is to send ole Eustace over to fetch the Kaiser 'ere, an' there yer are! Can't yer see it in all the papers--'Private Alf 'Iggins, V.C.--The 'ero as captured the Kaiser'?"

"Yes, I see meself gettin' it in the neck. I 'ope I knows my place better'n to go monkeyin' with kings.... Look out, the orficers!"

It was too late for them to gain the sanctuary of their dug-out, and they rose awkwardly to their feet as Shaw and Donaldson came along the trench. They had been out on an exploring expedition. Bill and Alf, seeing that neither Richards nor Allen was present, had hopes that they would not attract attention; but Donaldson, for all his sleepy appearance, was quick of eye.

"What's that in your hand, Grant?" he asked.

Bill, cursing inwardly the prying spirit to which he considered the commissioned ranks much too prone, reluctantly drew from behind him the tankard from which he had been drinking. Higgins did likewise, and the officers took one each.

"How awfully interesting," said Shaw. "Where did you find these, Grant?"

"In one of these 'ere dug-outs, sir."

"By Jove, Don!" Shaw turned to his companion. "Fritz does love to do himself well!"

He broke off in surprise. Donaldson had suddenly thrown off his air of boredom and was examining his tankard with an alert eye.

"Must be looted stuff," he said. "I'm a bit of an expert in these things. That's ancient oriental work, worth quite a bit."

"Excuse me, sir," put in Bill suavely. "But if this 'ere is any good to you as a souvenir, I don't set no partickler store by it."

"Nor me, sir," agreed Alf.

"Want to sell?"

"If you like, sir."

"Can't afford it. I'm not going to do you in. These mugs are probably worth a good bit."

"That's all right, sir. We'd much rather 'ave ten francs apiece now, sir. We didn't neither of us get much last time we 'ad a pay."

"Whose fault was that?" asked Shaw.

"I'll give you," Donaldson said, "twenty francs each--all I can manage."

"Thank you, sir."

"And mind, I expect to see some of this sent home when I censor the letters. I wouldn't give you so much all at once if we were in a place where we could get beer----"

"Aren't we, though," put in Shaw, pointing to a drop of amber liquid in the tankard he held. "Smell that!"

Donaldson sniffed.

"Beer, and good beer at that," he pronounced. He looked enquiringly at the two Tommies. Alf gave himself up for lost, but not so Bill.

"Yes, sir," he said easily. "I noticed that meself."

"I dare say," answered Donaldson grimly. "The point is, can you explain it?"

Bill's face grew preternaturally innocent.

"I expect, sir, Fritz left the mugs behind 'im in the Big Frost, sir, an' the drops got froze in. Prob'ly thawed again with the warmth of our 'ands."

Donaldson eyed the propounder of this ingenious theory gravely.

"Probably," he agreed. And relapsing into his customary taciturnity, he strode off down the trench with his two mugs, little Shaw trotting behind, still lost in wonder at the sudden discovery of an artistic side in old Don.

"'E don't believe yer," said Alf apprehensively.

"'Course not. 'E's no fool, isn't Don, for all 'e looks 'arf asleep. But 'e's a sport, an' 'e likes a good lie. You'll see, 'e'll say no more about it. Let's 'ave another."

Alf, whose throat was parched with all he had been through, this time let no consideration for the feelings of Eustace deter him.

Chapter VI

Isobel'S "Dream"

For the next day or two Alf found life very hard. Bill's appetite for beer increased by geometrical progression; and Eustace's possible indignation at being constantly summoned merely to supply Private Grant with large bitters filled Alf with the liveliest apprehension. He felt that Bill--who, under the influence of unlimited liquor, was losing his moral sense--was not playing the game. He even descended to the level of intimidating Higgins, when he declared himself unprepared to risk the djinn's displeasure any longer, by the use of threats.

"Stop me beer, will yer?" said Grant. "Very well, then. We'll just see what the R.S.M. 'as to say about yer goin's on. 'E won't 'arf tell yer orf, I don't think!"

The regimental sergeant-major is _ex officio_ the most terrible individual of a battalion from the point of view of the private soldier. True, the colonel is greater than he, in that from that officer the R.S.M. takes his orders; but the colonel--so far as Higgins and his peers were concerned--was a mere abstraction. The R.S.M. overshadowed him much as, in the eyes of unimaginative heathens, the priest overshadows the deity whose minister he is.

The R.S.M. of the 5th Middlesex Fusiliers, too, was a martinet of the most approved Regular Army type. His horizon was bounded on the one side by King's Regulations and on the other by the Manual of Military Law; and if he should become aware that a private of his battalion was so lost to the meaning of military discipline as to keep an unauthorized familiar spirit, the only possible result would be an explosion of wrath too terrible even to contemplate. Of this threat, therefore, Bill Grant made shameless use; and day by day he became more bibulous, Eustace more displeased, and Alf more miserable.

Alf racked his rather inadequate brains in the hope that Necessity would acknowledge her reputed offspring, Invention, and find him a way out of his troubles. But in the end Bill brought about his own undoing. He had a lively and, in his cups, a lurid imagination; and by giving it too free rein, he suggested to Alf a counter-threat.

"'Ow'd it be, ole f'ler," said Bill thickly, on the second day, after having kept Eustace almost continuously employed for several hours, "to 'ave old Eustish up again 'n tell 'im to turn the R.Esh.M. into a rhinosherush?"

To Alf this remark seemed not so much humorous as blasphemous; but it was also most illuminating. It opened his eyes to an aspect of his new powers which, left to himself, he would never have thought of.

"Look 'ere, Bill Grant!" he said, in suddenly confident tones. "That'll be about enough from you, see? Not another drop o' beer do you get till I says so. 'E's _my_ spook, Eustace is; an' if I 'as any more o' yer nonsense I'll take an' tell 'im to change _you_ into something. 'Ow'd yer like to be a--a transport mule, eh?"

Bill, suddenly smitten into something approaching sobriety, had no word to say. Alf, following up his advantage, continued his harangue.

"Not one drop more do yer get," he reiterated. "Eustace 'as been gettin' that fed up, I've been expectin' 'im to give me a month's notice any minute. An' nice we'd look if 'e started playin' monkey tricks on 'is own. All this beer business, you know; it ain't what 'e's been brought up to."

"'E can't do nothin', not without you tells 'im," said Bill, with a certainty he was far from feeling.

"Ah, an' 'ow do we know that? 'E might break loose an' then where'd we be? I've fair got the wind up, I tell yer. What we wanted to do is to 'umor the blighter."

"'Ow?"

"I dunno. 'Ow'd it be to give 'im something to do as 'e'd really enjoy--a decent job just to put 'im in a good temper again?"

"Buildin' palaces was 'is old line," mused Bill.

"Aye, but buildin' palaces 'ere would be just a blighted waste o' time," replied Alf, with strong common sense. "Can't you think o' nothin' else?"

Bill pondered deeply.

"Tell 'im," he suggested at last, "to bring us a girl. I'm fair sick for the sight of a pretty face."

"Dunno if that's much good. 'E mayn't care for females."

"Well, it is part of 'is peace-time job, anyway. Don't I tell yer 'e brought Aladdin a princess?"

"I'll try it. Any'ow, it'll be a change for 'im arter all that beer."

Eustace, it was obvious, approved of the idea. This new command was completely in accord with his ancient tradition.

"A maid fair as the dawn, great Master! It shall be so!" he said.

"Yes, and"--Alf suddenly remembered a recent abortive attempt to dally with a pretty French girl in an estaminet, and determined to run no further risks--"a English one."

"'Ere," put in Bill. "Make it two."

But the djinn had vanished.

"All right, Bill," Higgins said soothingly. "We'll send 'im back for one for you. Wonder what 'e'll bring for me--one of the 'Ippodrome chorus, I 'ope."

* * * * * * *

Lady Margaret Clowes and Isobel FitzPeter were walking together along the edge of the Row in Hyde Park. Margaret was wearing the workman-like, if unbeautiful, Red Cross uniform, for she was a hard-working V.A.D. at a private hospital. Isobel was a dainty vision, rivaling the lilies of the field.

"Did I tell you I'd had another letter from my cousin at the front?" asked Margaret.

"Which one?"

"Denis. Denis Allen. He sent you his kind regards. He's a nice boy. Do you remember him?"

"Hardly at all. He played cricket at Dunwater once or twice when I was a child. Really, Peggy, I'm getting fed up with men. Since those ridiculous papers took to publishing my photograph, every silly boy I've ever spoken to seems to want me to write to him."

"Why do you let them do it?" asked Margaret.

"I can't stop them writing to me, if they know my address."

"The papers, I mean. It's all very well calling them ridiculous, but you know that you give them every assistance."

"Rubbish!" Isobel's voice sounded scornful, but a sudden blush gave her away. Margaret, who had just come off duty after an unusually exacting spell, was rather out of patience with field-lilies. She returned to the attack.

"It isn't rubbish. And I don't think you ought to talk about the boys who write to you as you do. You make me very angry. After all, they are risking their lives, which is more than you can say."

"Well, how can I? I've often told you I'd love to go to the front," Isobel protested.

"Yes--in a spirit of vulgar curiosity, I suppose, just to have a look round. Iso, I could shake you, you're so self-satisfied, and so futile."

"Well, I think you're horribly rude. If you can't be more amusing, I'm going home. I've my part to learn for...."

"Oh--look! there's a horse bolting!" interrupted Margaret. She ran to the railings and watched breathlessly, while the mounted policeman on duty, who seemed to regard the whole affair as being in the day's work, caught the runaway and averted what might have been a very nasty accident. When she turned to speak to her companion, Isobel was no longer there.

"Temper!" thought Margaret to herself. "I suppose I was rather cross--but really Isobel's enough to try a saint sometimes. She must have gone off pretty quickly, too. However...."

Margaret was quite undisturbed--even a little amused at her friend's departure. She and Isobel often had fierce little quarrels, but these never had any lasting effect on their friendship. She would see Isobel to-morrow, and the whole thing would be forgotten. For the present, she continued her walk alone.

An old gentleman sitting on a seat near by, who had chanced to be looking at Isobel at the moment when Eustace (having awarded her the prize in his private beauty competition) swooped down and carried her off, was the only actual spectator of her disappearance. Doubting the evidence of his senses, he waited anxiously until Margaret should find out what had happened; he looked for her to scream or faint, or show her horror by some emotional upheaval; when she simply walked on as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, he was smitten with panic. He dashed home and went straight to bed.

* * * * * * *

Isobel's surprise and alarm when she found herself unexpectedly face to face with two tinhatted and unwashed Tommies in a subterranean cavern, lit only by a feeble gleam of daylight from the roof, was obvious; but she was too well bred to allow her emotions to master her. For a moment, conscious thought seemed to be suspended in her. Then, as the objects about her took shape, she decided that she must be dreaming.

At once all sense of fear left her. If it was only a dream, she argued to herself, it could not matter what happened to her. She waited with a kind of amused expectancy to see what turn events would take.

Alf and Bill, on the other hand, were not a little disturbed. They had realized at once that Eustace, in his ignorance, had committed an awful social solecism. Even the resourceful Bill's imagination boggled at the idea of explaining to this dainty vision how she came to be in her present surroundings. They stood before her, embarrassed and tongue-tied. Alf thought of recalling the djinn and telling him to take her straight back; but his very real and increasing fear of offending his familiar forbade. Besides, his visitor was very lovely, and filled his jaded masculine eye with a lively sense of satisfaction.

After a while the silence became oppressive and Isobel spoke.

"Where am I?" she asked. "Who are you?"

Bill, who had been making a surreptitious and feline toilet in the gloomy recesses of the dug-out, stepped forward and saluted.

"Don't be frightened, miss," he said soothingly, "but this 'ere's a dug-out in France, on the Western Front."

"That proves it," said Isobel to herself, with a certain satisfaction. "It _is_ just a vivid dream. Perhaps it's telepathy or levitation or something. Anyway, the great point to remember is that I'm not really here at all."

The two men watched her anxiously. Both had expected her to be terrified at the news. Her air of unruffled serenity alarmed them, because neither could understand it.

"Now let me see," she continued her train of thought--"a few minutes ago, I was in the Park with Peggy--but perhaps I dreamt that, too. In fact I must have.... I don't remember going to bed, though.... Oh, well, it's no good worrying, it'll be all right when I wake up. A dug-out?" She echoed Bill's words uncertainly.

"Yes, miss. I'm very sorry, miss. If you please, it's all a mistake. We didn't mean no 'arm. If you'll just wait a minute, we'll send you back again to London quite all...."

But Isobel's usual spirit returned to her at this point. Whether this was dream or miracle, she determined to see it through.

"Send me back?" she said. "No, indeed you shan't! I've always longed to see the front. They won't let me in real life, and now you're trying to spoil it in a dream. If you only knew how I've tried to get leave to come over! It's too absolutely divine for anything--I wouldn't miss it for worlds. And I'm sure you'll be very kind and show me round, Mr...."

"'Iggins--Private Alfred 'Iggins, 5th Middlesex Fusiliers. An' this is me pal, Private Grant."

"Pleasetermeacher!" mumbled Bill, saluting.

"Well, you will, won't you?" Isobel smiled at them suddenly and beseechingly. Alf capitulated.

"'Appy to, miss," replied the infatuated youth. "What is it you wants to see?"

"Everything. I want to see just how you live and what you do. I want to see a shell burst, and--oh, everything."

"Better not bother with shells, miss," said Bill grimly; "one might 'it you."

"Oh, but that doesn't matter in a dream! Is this the way up?"

She climbed up the steep and difficult staircase, gallantly assisted by Alf. Bill followed gloomily, his mind busy with wondering first what would happen if a stray long-distance shell did injure Isobel, and second what Sergeant Lees or any of his superiors would say if he saw them.

The same thought struck Alf as they reached the trench above.

"Company 'Edquarters is up there," he said, with a jerk of the thumb. "We'd best go the other way."

Isobel, making shameless play with her eyes, laid a hand for one moment on Alf's arm.

"What _is_ a Company Headquarters?" she asked. "I want to see it."

A subtle, faint perfume reached Alf's nostrils and thrilled him all through. Now that she was in the full light of day, he could take in her exquisite quality. Her clothes, though obviously expensive, were too plain to suit Bill's untutored eye, but Alf, possessing by some queer freak of nature an unexpectedly true taste, saw in her the apotheosis of all that was most admirable in women. By all the laws of probability his tastes should have been for bright colors and nodding feathers, but such decorations left him cold, while this girl struck him dumb. She was simply the embodiment of his ideal.

"Now I'm here," she went on, "I want to see for myself just what you poor men have to put up with. How awful it must be to live in a trench like this. And can't you show me a German?"

She smiled up into Alf's face.

That smile galvanized him as before, into a display of rash gallantry.

"So you shall, miss," he said. "Just step along the trench 'ere, and we'll show you all we can."

Isobel surveyed the trench doubtfully and then looked down at her delicately shod feet.

"Couldn't we walk along the top?" she asked. "It all seems so quiet and peaceful--surely there'd be no danger. We must be a long way from the Germans, aren't we?"

"It's not Fritz, miss," interposed Bill earnestly. "It's our sergeant. 'E mustn't see us with you. A fair terror, 'e is."

"Oh," said Isobel easily, feeling that she could deal with these dream-people of hers as she pleased. "I'll see you don't get into trouble. This is _such_ an opportunity--I mustn't waste it ... here's a flight of steps, if you'll give me your hand again and...."

She reached the top and her voice ceased as suddenly and uncannily as a voice ceases when it is cut off in the middle of a word on the telephone. She stood staring dumbly across the old No-Man's-Land, making in her dainty furs the strangest picture that battle-scarred strip of land had seen. Alf and Bill, one on each side of her, gazed, too.

"There ain't much to see 'ere, I'm afraid, miss," said the latter apologetically. According to his lights, Bill spoke the truth. To his accustomed eyes there was nothing to be seen worthy of special mention; but to Isobel--pitch-forked straight from her sheltered, mindless life into the very heart of the battle area--it was far otherwise.

Her first feeling was that her dream had suddenly turned to horrible nightmare. Surely nothing but distorted fancy could have produced the scene before her eyes! It was as though the earth had been some stricken monster, which had stiffened into death in the very midst of the maddened writhings of its last agony. For the most part it was a land without landmarks--a land featureless, but torn and tortured, poisoned and pulverized, where the eye could find no certain resting-place and the mind no relief. On every side lay the same desolate waste, pockmarked with shell-holes, each of which was half filled with stagnant and stinking water, on the surface of which was an oozing and fetid scum. Here and there the ragged remains of a barbed-wire entanglement stood out above the general welter; here and there--but very rarely--a few scattered stones indicated where once had stood a cottage; here and there fluttered decayed rags of blue or khaki or field-gray.... Cartridge-cases, bits of equipment, bully-beef tins--all kinds of abandoned rubbish were scattered about.

On the right ran the main road--the one feature of the whole pitiful panorama which still retained some individuality. Once it had been famous for its avenue of tall trees. Those trees still flanked the roadway, but now the tallest of them was a ravaged stump standing a bare four feet above the ground, and the same gun-fire that had smitten them down had smashed the road itself into a sickly yellow pulp.

Once, no doubt, the road had run between fields green with grass or young corn; but now it seemed to Isobel beyond imagining that life could ever again come near to it. Even the vilest weed might shudder to grow on earth's dead body, mangled and corrupted and shamefully exposed....

Alf's voice broke the silence.

"It's a bit dull 'ere, miss," he said, with cheerful bathos. "There ain't much to show yer. But see yon mound over there on the left? That was a church once, that was. But you can 'unt all day and never find nothing of the buildin', all except the church bell;--on'y it's too far to walk in them boots. One of our C.T.'s--communication trenches, I should say--runs right underneath it."

Isobel gave no answer, unless a sound something between a gulp and a sob can be so described. Depths seemed to be stirring in her nature that she had not hitherto been conscious of possessing. She felt mean and small and bitterly humbled. She had desired to see the front out of mere heedless curiosity, as a child might wish to visit a slaughter-house. She had had her desire, and her eyes had seen unimaginable horrors--horrors which had become so much a commonplace to the men who passed their lives in this shambles that they apologized for its lack of greater horrors. Compared with what they had seen, there was "nothing much" here for her curious eye. Only a strip of ground fought over a month before--its dead buried, its wounded carried away to a smiling land where such as she were flattered and praised in the public press because out of their useless lives they deigned to devote an occasional hour to those same wounded.

A sudden horror came over her lest she should see a dead man. She covered her eyes with her hands and gave a convulsive shudder.

"Don't--don't take me over there!" she said, and climbed down the steps again into the trench.

Bill and Alf, much concerned to understand what could possibly have upset their visitor, were on the point of following, when there was a sound of squelching mud, and a figure appeared round the angle of the trench.

"Lumme!" said Bill's voice in an appalled whisper. "The orficer!" With one accord the two Tommies turned and fled as their platoon commander approached.

Lieutenant Allen had been tramping about all the afternoon, reconnoitering the approaches to the front line in case of trouble. Muddy and hungry and dog-tired, he was now plodding mechanically back to his hole in the ground, while his thoughts wandered vaguely and wistfully to home and his people--and Isobel. At the sound of Bill's whisper he looked up and stopped dead. Clearly his nerves must be beginning to give way, for he seemed to see the subject of his thoughts standing before him in the trench.

"My God!" he exclaimed--"Isobel!"

She stared at the muddy figure before her for a long moment. Then recognition dawned slowly in her eyes.

"You!" she said at last, and her voice seemed to Allen to hold in it all that he most longed for in the world.

"Isobel! am I mad or dreaming?"

"Oh," she cried, with a sob--"it's a dream. It must be a dream. If it isn't, I can't bear it. It's too awful."

The sight of a face she knew had added to the scene the last touch of horror for her. She stood there, the tears glistening in her eyes, passionately pitiful, passionately lovely. The pretty fool of _The Tatler_ pictures had ceased to be, and this glorious woman had risen like the phoenix from her ashes. Denis held his breath for fear his vision would fade....

Meanwhile, the two Tommies had regained the shelter of their dug-out with more speed than grace.

"Quick!" said Bill, in a trembling voice. "'Urry up, or she'll give us away, for sure. What a mug you was to tell 'er our names."

With a feverish hand, Alf rubbed the Button....

Denis Allen started and rubbed his eyes.

"Isobel!" he said once more. But she was gone.

* * * * * * *

Denis leaned against the side of the trench for support. His heart was thumping against his ribs, and his throat had a strained, parched feeling. He was very badly scared.

Strange things do happen to men at the front; small hallucinations, induced by the ceaseless strain on the nerves and senses, are of common occurrence. The eyes play queer tricks sometimes on sentry-go, so that a tuft of grass becomes a lurking sniper. Allen himself could remember one occasion when he had actually seen German infantry advancing stealthily to the attack, and had given the alarm; only to be severely told off by an irate Company Commander for having interrupted his evening meal for nothing.

But this was different. This way madness lay. He had not known that his nerves had reached this state; he must pull himself together, get back at once to his dug-out and sleep. If he climbed out of the trench and went across the open, he would cut off a big corner; accordingly he did so. Just at this moment a German battery saw fit to drop a long-range shell at a venture into the British rear lines. It exploded only a few yards from Denis. He felt a tremendous thump in the chest, and rolled over, coughing and fighting for breath. Then a black curtain seemed to shut down over his eyes, and for a few moments he lost consciousness. Then he was hazily aware of voices, and a hand loosening his collar, fiddling about with his shirt and finally applying a field-dressing to a wound high up in his chest. He moved convulsively.

"Lie still, sir," said a voice. "It's Private 'Iggins, sir. Private Grant's gone for stretcher-bearers. You'll be all right, sir--it's only a little 'ole. Just lie still."

By the time the stretcher arrived he had more or less come to himself. He could see once more, and he was conscious only of two things, namely, that his feet were horribly, cruelly cold, and that he was done with the front for a time. Slowly and gently he was carried across the rough ground to the battalion aid-post, where the Battalion M.O. received him.

"Hullo, Sniggles!" said Denis weakly.

"Well, young man," answered Sniggles, enthusiastically cutting all Denis's expensive clothing to pieces with a large pair of shears. "Let's see what they've done to you. Ah!"

He removed the bandage. Denis listened for his verdict, in dread lest his wound should be serious enough to be fatal, or not serious enough to give him his heart's desire.

"Shall I be all right?" he asked at last.

"Think so, old man."

"Good. Is it a Blighty one all right?"

"Sniggles" smiled at the eagerness in his tone.

"A Blighty one? I should think it is. A long holiday from the Army for you, my lad."

Denis gave one grin of pure happiness, and then the haziness came over him again. He lay for some time waiting for the ambulance. Occasionally a dim form bent over him; once he heard the colonel's voice speaking his name. For a second or two his brain cleared, and he understood a word or two.

" ... sorry to lose him, but he's earned a rest...."

Next, he felt himself lifted and placed, still on his stretcher, in a motor-ambulance. Most of the officers seemed to be standing about, to see him off. There was a chorus of "Good-by, old man--and good luck!" He gave a feeble smile in return, and then his journey began.

Chapter VII

Eustace Orders A Bath

All next day Bill Grant was conscious that Alf was not his usual self. He seemed strangely preoccupied and absent-minded; and when even dinner-time failed to arouse him, Bill became seriously alarmed.

As soon as the midday meal was done the two men sought their private retreat. They lit their pipes and smoked for some time in a silence, broken at last by a heavy sigh from Alf.

"What's up with yer?" demanded Bill suddenly. "Is it yer stummick?"

"I'm all right," answered Alf in a voice of hopeless dejection.

There was another long silence, once more terminating in a sigh.

"Look 'ere," said Bill, getting up in disgust, "if you feel as bad as all that, for 'eving's sake 'ave a good cry and get it over, an' let's 'ave the old 'ome 'appy once again. What the 'ell's up?"

Alf did not answer this question, except by asking another.

"Bill," he asked with a forced lightness of tone which quite failed to conceal the earnestness it covered. "What did yer think of Eustace's taste in females?"

Bill turned and looked at him with a suddenly comprehending eye. Alf wriggled uneasily under his gaze.

"So that's it, is it?" commented Bill. "Poor old Alf!" He gave a long whistle.

"What'd you think of--of 'er, Bill?"

"Well," was the honest reply, "that kind o' fine lady ain't my style at all. I like a girl as can back-answer yer a bit. But she was a reg'lar daisy for looks."

Alf heaved another tremendous sigh.

"Gawd!" he exclaimed. "I can't 'elp thinkin' 'ow awful it'd 'ave been if that shell as 'it Mr. Allen 'ad come over a bit sooner an' done _'er_ in!"

He fell silent, lost in contemplation of this terrible idea. Bill was thinking deeply. He fixed a far-away gaze on Alf, reducing that warrior, very self-conscious in the unaccustomed rôle of love-sick swain, to the last pitch of embarrassment. When at last Bill came back to earth his words were startling in the extreme.

"Well," he said casually. "If that's 'ow you feel, why don't you marry the girl?"

"What?... Me?... Marry 'oo?"

"Eustace's female, whatever 'er name is."

"You're barmy! Might as well tell me to marry a royal princess straight orf."

"Well, an' why not, if you want to?" Bill was quite unmoved. "Eustace fixed it up for Aladdin--why not for Alf 'Iggins?"

"Yes, but--Aladdin, 'e was a prince 'isself."

"Not to start with 'e wasn't, an' if you married a princess you'd be a prince, too. Prince 'Iggins--it'd look fine on a brass plate. Now look 'ere, Alf, my lad, yer just wastin' yer time. You don't seem to 'ave no idea what a lot you could do with Eustace. If _I_ 'ad a pet spook I'd use 'im a sight better'n what you do. Why don't you stop the blinkin' war? Get Kaiser Bill over 'ere, and...."

"Once an' for all," interposed Alf with firmness, "I ain't goin' to mix meself up in nothing o' that sort. I knows enough to keep clear o' what's too 'igh for me. I'm a plain man, I am. Besides, Eustace ain't to be trusted. 'E'd be sure to make a muck of it an' get me into trouble some'ow."

Bill abandoned this topic for the time being with reluctance; the idea of kidnaping the Kaiser was the cherished child of his brain. But he knew that Alf when obstinate was quite impervious to argument; he therefore returned to the original question.

"Any'ow," he said. "If you want to marry that girl, Eustace'll manage it for yer. It was 'is job in peace-time--'e'll thank yer for a chance to get back to it. As I says, Aladdin married a princess, an' 'e wasn't no great specimen of a man any more'n what you are. I remember 'is mother was a washerwoman by the name o' Twankey, in the pantomime."

"Really?" asked Alf with sudden interest. "Why, my good ole mother takes in washin', too."

He seemed much cheered by this striking similarity between himself and his prototype. For the first time he seemed to realize that Bill's suggestion might be something more than idle verbiage.

"S'posin' you was me, then," he asked. "'Ow'd you set about the business? I ain't got no idea of this 'ere game."

"Well, I ain't exactly thought it out meself, but the first thing to do's to get back to Blighty."

"That does me in for a start," said Alf hopelessly.

"Not a bit. What about our month's re-engagement leave? It's five years next month since you an' me joined the Terriers, an' the Captain says 'e's applied for it, an' we'll get it in time. May be a month or two late, but we'll get it all right. Tell yer what I'll do, though. There's a ole lady in Blighty what sends me books an' papers an' things. I'll get 'er to send me the book about Aladdin, an' we'll see 'ow 'e worked the trick. P'raps we'll pick up a 'int or two that way. But you trust to Eustace an' me. We'll put it all right for you, as soon as we get our leave."

Accordingly a letter to the old lady in Blighty was composed and dispatched that same afternoon.

The glittering prospect before him filled Alf with as much apprehension as elation. The passion inspired in him by Isobel was a desire of the moth for the star--a distant worship of a goddess who had vouchsafed him one brief vision of her beauty and had then vanished beyond his ken forever. But Bill's practical common sense had changed all that. Alf found himself called upon to readjust his mental horizon, and to gaze upon a new prospect in which his goddess appeared suddenly changed to mortal form and proportions.

He could not accustom himself all at once to the new conditions. He felt sure that there must be "a catch" in the idea somewhere.

"Look 'ere," he said, after profound cogitation. "D'you mean to tell me as anything that Eustace can do'll make _'er_ walk out with _me_?"

"'Course I do," said Bill confidently. "Look 'ere, now; s'pose you go to 'er an' say, 'I'm a millionaire, an' I've got palaces an' jools, an' 'orses, an'--oh, everything I want'--d'yer think any female's goin' to refuse all that, if you was as ugly as sin? Not on yer life. She'll eat out of yer 'and, you'll see."

But Bill Grant's cynicism failed to convince Alf, who shook his head despondently. Then, with characteristic philosophy, since none of these strange and wonderful things could begin to happen to him until his month's leave (itself only a happy possibility) came through, he dismissed the whole affair from his mind for the time being.

The battalion finished its turn in the trenches without further casualties, and once more prepared to move back to rest billets. The future was uncertain; but it did not seem likely that this respite would be of long duration. The battle of Arras had begun, and all along the line there was work to be done. At any moment the division might be called upon to trek to the Arras district, or to fill some unexpected gap elsewhere; so Colonel Enderby, on the day before the 5th Battalion marched out, sent a certain Sergeant Oliver before them with orders to make arrangements whereby his battalion on leaving the line might lose no time in making itself clean and tidy once more. To put it more simply, he told him to rig up some baths.

In "C" Company Lieutenant Allen's disappearance had caused few actual changes, although Captain Richards missed his cheery help and sound judgment at every turn. No officer had appeared from England as yet to fill his place, and No. 9 Platoon was now under the sole charge of Sergeant Lees, who ruled it with a rod of iron.

On the morning of the move the autocrat was in high good humor.

"Pack yer traps up, boys," he said. "It's good-by to the line to-day. Please 'Eaven, you'll all get a 'ot bath to-morrow."

"'Ear that, Bill?" asked Alf in delight. "I'm just about fed up with the line. Think o' gettin' into a billet again!"

"Umph," said Bill. "We won't be any better orf in a billet than in our dug-out, anyway. On'y thing _I_ wanter get back for is to 'ave something to drink, since you're so mean with Eustace. If _I_ 'ad a pet spook I wouldn't be that way, I can tell yer."

"I can't 'elp it," said Alf, resenting the imputation of meanness, but adamantine in his determination not to risk Eustace's displeasure again.

"Huh!" said Bill. There was a world of meaning in this monosyllable, and none of it was complimentary to Alf.

The 5th Battalion was far enough back from the front line to be safely relieved by daylight. In consequence, the relieving battalion arrived up to time, and Alf and Bill were well on their way by eleven o'clock. So long as it was in the shelled area, the battalion marched by platoons, with a space of about a hundred yards between each body and the next. Once the danger limit was passed, however, it was closed up again for economy of road space.

At about four-thirty in the afternoon, worn and weary, the men approached a pleasant village and sighed contentedly to see a little group of four khaki figures awaiting them. These were the company quartermaster-sergeants, whose job is to look after the feeding of their companies at all times and their housing when out of the line. "Quarters" is by training an autocrat and by hereditary reputation a scoundrel, but when he is seen waiting to show his men into its happy but temporary homes at the end of a long march, he is the most popular man in the company.

As Captain Richards rode in at the head of his cohort, C.Q.M.S. Piper came up and explained to him what splendid billets he had secured, what enormous trouble he had had to secure any billets at all, and how well his own compared with those of the other companies. Along the road, the other C.Q.M.S.'s might have been seen, each giving his own company commander precisely similar information. Each platoon was then settled into its particular mud barn by its own officer, while little Shaw, as subaltern of the day (otherwise known as Orderly Dog), bustled round to the traveling cookers to ascertain from the sergeant cook how soon a hot meal would be forthcoming.

When this repast was over Alf and Bill found themselves told off as units in a blanket-carrying party, after which they turned in and slept the sleep of the thoroughly unjust for about twelve hours.

Next morning, after breakfast, Captain Richards paraded his company, and as usual after coming out of the line, lectured them on their appearance.

"However," he concluded, "you'll have no excuse if you turn up to-morrow dirty. Sergeant Oliver has got some baths going in the back yard of the 'Rayon d'Or' in Aberfeldy Street; and you'll go down there by sections, beginning at ten o'clock. And I'll hold a dam' strict inspection at half-past three--so look out!"

In due course, Corporal Greenstock paraded his section, containing Privates Higgins and Grant, and marched it down Dunoon Street, through Piccadilly Circus into Aberfeldy Street. There in a cloud of steam they found Sergeant Oliver, whose military career at the front was divided between improvising baths for the battalion when it came out of the line, and supplying facilities for the drying of socks when in it. The bath on this occasion was an enormous wooden tub, capable of holding four men at a time. The sergeant and his satellites were busy keeping a veritable furnace going beneath a boiler which several gloomy defaulters constantly refilled from a well nearby. One clean fill of water was the allowance for each section, and by the time the water was emptied out it had become only less thick than the mud of the trenches they had just left.

The whole arrangement reflected the greatest credit on Sergeant Oliver, considering that when he had arrived at the "Rayon d'Or" neither tub nor boiler had been there. Whence and by whose permission they had been procured were questions which the colonel had carefully refrained from asking. But the sybaritic soul of Bill Grant clamored for something better still. He drew Alf on one side and whispered. Alf shook his head. Bill became more earnest; Higgins hesitated--and was lost. Both men slipped quietly out of the bath-house while Corporal Greenstock, taking the best of the water by right of seniority, was performing his ablutions.

It was a very quiet village, sparsely inhabited. Alf and Bill soon found a large farmyard in which, remote from public view, stood a dilapidated barn.

"This'll do fine!" said Bill. "There's nobody living in the 'ouse--we'll be as safe as the Pay Corps 'ere."

"I don't know," objected Alf. "What about that 'aystack in the loft? That must belong to some one."

"Well, 'ooever it belongs to, they don't live 'ere, an' we can keep a look-out in case any one comes. Go on, ring up ole Eustace. You won't find a better place."

Alf rubbed his Button.

"See that barn, Eustace?" he asked, before the djinn had time to begin his usual formula. "Well, put us a real nice bath inside it."

"O Master, behold, it is done!"

Eustace vanished, looking pleased. "Real nice baths" were entirely in accordance with the Aladdin tradition.

The two Tommies turned towards the barn, and stood lost in amazement. The building was outwardly as dilapidated as before, but inside it was all light and color and perfumed magnificence. Marble pillars veiled by silken hangings stood just inside the broken mud walls, and through the hangings could be seen just so much as to hint at further splendors beyond.

"Lumme!" said Alf, as soon as he could speak. "Why is 'e always so blinkin' 'olesale? 'E'll be givin' the 'ole show away, one o' these days. What's to be done now, Bill? 'Ave 'im come back again an' make 'im clear away the 'ole caboodle, I s'pose?"

"I s'pose so," said Bill reluctantly. "I s'pose so. Seems a pity, but ... 'ullo!"

He broke off.

The silken hangings had been suddenly drawn back by two enormous negroes, clad in sumptuous and glittering uniforms; a spacious hall was thus revealed, in which a crowd of beautiful female slaves in marvelous though rather scanty oriental draperies was waiting.

"Goo' Lord! The 'Ippodrome Chorus!" said Grant in an awed voice, his protests forgotten. The most beautiful of the slaves came forward, and paused just inside the pillared entrance, a smile of invitation upon her lips.

"'Ere," said Bill. "This is goin' to be a bit of all right. We mustn't miss this. One of us'll 'ave to keep guard while the other 'as 'is bath. Toss for 'oo goes first, see?--You call!"

"'Eads," said Alf.

"Tails it is," replied Bill with great satisfaction. "I'm goin' to bath first. 'Arf an hour each, see?"

He entered the building, and the slaves clustered about him. Then the negroes drew the curtains, and Alf saw him no more.

Bill, highly gratified by his reception, was led through the entrance hall into another lofty chamber, wonderfully built of different-colored marbles. From one end of this chamber came the pleasant sound of running water, where a little fountain flowed into a bath sunk into the floor, and entered by a flight of marble steps. By some invisible device sufficient water was allowed to flow out to keep the bath always full to a uniform depth. From it arose a faint cloud of steam, fragrant and scented.

The leader of the slaves led Bill to a divan and bowed profoundly.

"Thank you, my dear," said Bill. "This'll do me a treat. Now, if you'll just take yer friends away and wait outside, I'll be with yer in 'arf a tick."

But the lady seemed neither to understand him nor to have any intention of going. She signed to two of her following, who came forward and unlaced Grant's boots. She herself began daintily to unbutton his tunic.

This was too much for the scandalized Bill.

"'Ere," he said, leaping suddenly to his feet. "This 'as gone far enough. None of yer disrespectable foreign ways for me! Why, I've never been washed by a female since my old mother used to give me a bath when I was a nipper! 'Ere, 'op it--skedaddle!"

Bill's remarks were not understood, but his gesture of dismissal was unmistakable. The slaves made each a low obeisance and retired; the face of the leader wore so obvious an air of pained astonishment that Bill felt he owed her some kind of reparation.

"It's all right, Alice," he called. "Wait outside for me, an' I'll let yer brush me 'air arterwards."

Left alone, Bill undressed; he examined with profound suspicion the silver bowls of rich unguents which stood at one end of the bath; and then, extracting from his tunic-pocket a weary-looking cake of soap, he plunged into the water and prepared to give himself up to the enjoyment of the most luxurious moment that life had yet afforded him.

Meanwhile Alf, keeping watch outside, had begun to find time hang heavy on his hands. The farmyard was utterly deserted--only in the building into which he had seen Bill disappear was there any sign of life. He lounged into the road, cursing the fate which had given Bill the first choice, and wondering whether after all the chance of discovery was great enough to make his lonely vigil worth while. He debated this point for some time, and had almost made up his mind to chance it and join Bill forthwith, when he heard his name called.

"'Ere! 'Iggins!"

He looked up the road apprehensively. Two men of his own section had turned a corner and were bearing down upon him. Panic-stricken, he dashed into the farmyard and shouted for Bill. There was no response. Feverishly he felt for his Button and rubbed it.

"Eustace," he said in a trembling voice, "cart all that away--quick! An' then 'op it yerself. Look slippy!"

Bill Grant had just felt the warm, soft water close over his body--had just begun to realize a delicious sense of lightness and rest which pervaded his whole frame--when everything about him seemed to fade into smoke and disappear. The marble bath, the stately hall, the water, the silken hangings, all vanished in a flash, and he found himself, naked and cold, lying on the cobbled floor of an exceedingly well-ventilated French barn. Worst of all, his clothes had disappeared with the rest.

Outside in the yard he could see Alf signing to him in the greatest agitation; he made a dash for the haystack in the loft, and had just reached its sanctuary when he heard voices below him. Peeping through a crack in the loft floor he could see Denham and Walls, the two privates whose untimely appearance had upset Alf so completely.

"Corp'ril sent us for yer, Alf," explained Walls. "Says we got to bring yer back under escort for bilkin' yer bath."

"He also wished us to secure Grant," added Private Denham, a youth who was cultivating a refined accent with a view to subsequent application for a commission.

"Well, 'e ain't 'ere, me lord," answered Alf shortly. "I'll come right away. I was just comin', any'ow."

Unaware of the tragic loss of Bill's clothes, Alf was only anxious to get his captors away from the spot and to give his pal a chance of appearing clothed again and in his right mind as soon as might be.

Bill heard their voices die away, and despairingly reviewed his position. The hay, with which he was obliged to cover himself for warmth, tickled his bare body cruelly. He was too far from his billet to think of trying to return there in his present condition, even if modesty had allowed. His clothes were irretrievably lost until Alf should come back that way, bringing the Button. Until Higgins realized that something was wrong and came in search of him, Bill must remain an outcast, naked and ashamed. He made himself a nest in the softest part of the hay and settled himself down to wait.

After a time he dozed off; he was recalled to himself by the sound of a footstep below. It paused at the bottom of the ladder leading to the loft.

"Alf!" said Bill in a stage whisper.

"_Qui va la?_" answered a strange voice--an old, quavery voice, apparently female. Bill curled himself into his nest of hay and lay perfectly still. The owner of the voice, having listened for some time, apparently decided that Bill's greeting had been a delusion of the senses and began painfully and wheezily to climb the ladder. Through a layer of hay, Bill's eye commanded the loft door. His visitor was an elderly Frenchwoman with a pitch-fork, evidently the owner of the hay.

She began to fork the hay down with surprising vigor for one so frail. Bill lay close as a maggot in a nut; but unfortunately, at her sixth prod, the old lady dug her weapon into one of the tenderest parts of his undraped anatomy, and Bill sprang up with an eldritch scream. Naked as he was, and festooned and bristling with hay, he was a startling apparition. The old Frenchwoman gave forth a yell as if all the devils in hell were after her, and clambered down the ladder with the speed of a cat. By some miracle she preserved her footing till she was halfway down the ladder; but then her feet slipped and she shot ignominiously on to her own hay. Bill thought for a moment that she had hurt herself; but a second later he heard her wooden shoes on the cobbles outside as she took to her heels and ran for her life.

Bill, shivering, returned gloomily to his hay. The fat was in the fire now, without a doubt. Even if she did not inform the colonel, the old lady was sure to alarm the villagers; and what they might do to him Bill hardly dared imagine. He lay shivering with cold and fright. After a time he seemed to hear stealthy footsteps. He determined that his only chance was to give himself up and throw himself on the mercy of his captors. He stood up, and shook himself free of the hay.

A voice below spoke--Alf's voice.

"Bill!" it said.

* * * * * * *

Half an hour later Bill stood before Sergeant Lees.

"Ho," said that autocrat. "'Ere you are. Bilked yer bath, you 'ave, so I 'ear, an' missed the Captain's inspection; an' the British soldier's first dooty is to be clean."

"I got a better bath in the village, sergeant. Didn't think you'd mind," said Bill desperately.

"Ho, did yer? Don't seem to 'ave done yer much good. 'Ave yer seen yerself?"

The sergeant handed him a shaving-mirror. Grant studied his features in silence. His adventures in the hay had completely destroyed the effects of his bath. His face was streaked and mottled with black dust till he looked like a dissipated nigger.

"No, my lad," said the sergeant grimly. "That yarn's like you--it don't wash. You'll report to Sergeant Oliver to-morrer an' act as bath-orderly for the rest o' the week."

Chapter VIII

Blighty For Two

Grant's appointment to the menial position of bath-orderly plunged him into a state of savage gloom. His duties were arduous and his hours long; and as he spent even his free time in morose silence, he soon made Alf as miserable as himself. Gradually the week wore away until at last the sentence was served, and Bill was once more a free man.

But his punishment seemed to have soured his whole outlook on life; even now he continued sullenly aloof till at last even the easy-going Alf felt himself constrained to remonstrate.

"Look 'ere, Bill," he said. "What's up?"

"Fed up!" growled Bill.

"Fed up? Well, o' course you're fed up. Ain't we all fed up? But that ain't no reason for goin' on like this. You might be a lot worse off. 'Ere we are, back from the line an' in billets in a nice little village with shops an' estaminets an' ... an' baths."

"If you wants one in the 'ear-'ole," said Bill, rising wrathfully, "you've on'y got to say 'bath' to me again. An' look 'ere, I never 'ad no use for sermons any'ow. Get on to the 'ymn."

Alf regarded him helplessly. Bill simply stared straight before him with a queer glint in his eyes.

"Look 'ere," said Higgins at last, deciding to stretch a point for the sake of a quiet life. "Shall I get Eustace to fetch yer a pint?"

"No."

"It'd do yer good."

"No, I tell yer. Keep yer blinkin' Eustace an' yer blinkin' beer, an' f'r 'Eaven's sake leave me alone. I'm fed up with the 'ole boilin' of yer--sick of it. Sick o' the War, an' this ruddy country, an' everything. I wants to get 'ome to Blighty, an', oh Gawd! to think I'll 'ave to wait another two months."

Alf was silent and sympathetic; he could remember times when he had been helpless in the grip of just such a desperate angry longing to escape from France and all that it stood for. An idea struck him.

"Couldn't Eustace ...?" he began.

"No. D'you think I 'aven't sense enough to think o' that meself? This is one o' them times when Eustace ain't no blinkin' use at all--unless you've got enough guts to send 'im over to get ole Kaiser Bill 'ere, an...."

"Well, I won't," said Alf obstinately. "I told you before. An' I don't see why Eustace can't take you over to Blighty all right. 'E brought that young lady over 'ere."

"Because," said Bill, with the air of one explaining truisms to a wrong-headed child, "if we asks Eustace to take us 'ome, what 'appens? We're deserters. Sooner or later we'd get found out an' shot. 'Tain't worth it. I should 'ave thought even you could 'ave understood that."

With this Parthian shot he stalked heavily away, leaving Alf disconsolate. But as soon as he was alone he began to ponder Alf's scorned suggestion. Was there not some way in which Eustace could be employed to take Bill and Alf home for a space without subjecting them to the risk of subsequent execution? He turned the question over in his restless mind, but in vain; and as a result his temper at bed-time was even less equable than before. Alf was glad to roll himself up in his blanket and go to sleep.

But Bill could not sleep. Long after "lights out," he lay awake, thinking and brooding over his problem; and his longing for Blighty grew sharper till it was almost more than he could bear. But he knew that until he could find some way of circumventing his difficulties he must continue, like the cat in the adage, to let "I dare not" wait upon "I would."

At last, just as daylight began to appear, a new idea struck him. It was a scheme of masterly simplicity in which his tired brain could detect no flaw. He leant over and shook the dimly visible form of Alf, who woke in astonishment and was about to give tongue when Bill's huge hand was clapped over his mouth, and Bill's voice spoke fiercely in his ear.

"Quiet, you fool!"

"Wasermarrer?" enquired Alf thickly, as soon as the hand was removed.

"I got it!" whispered Bill triumphantly.

"Got what?"

"I knows 'ow we can work it."

There was a pause, as Alf allowed this to sink in. "Work what?" he asked at last.

"Wake up, you fat'ed, an' listen. It's a transfer we want."

"A what?"

"A _transfer_!"

"Do we?"

Bill's overtried nerves snapped suddenly.

"If it wasn't for the row it'd make, I'd dot yer one," he hissed fiercely. "'Ere, put yer things on quiet an' slip outside, an' I'll tell yer there."

A few moments later, in the dim first light of dawn, Bill unfolded his scheme.

"If we tells Eustace to transfer us to the Reserve Battalion 'ome in Blighty, that ain't desertion, because we'd still be soldierin', see. An' it's about time you and me 'ad a little go o' soldierin' at 'ome, for a change like. Oh, it's a real brainy notion, Alf. Can't think why I never thought of it before."

Alf, still half-asleep, had only the vaguest conception of the meaning of the magic word "transfer" and still less of the formalities attaching thereto; but such was his trust in the acumen and the military knowledge of his mate that he accepted the statement without reserve. Acting under Bill's instructions he rubbed his Button. Instantly Eustace appeared with his usual formula.

"We want to be transferred," said Alf. "To the Reserve Battalion in Blighty--at once, please."

"Lord!" answered the djinn, "I hear and obey."

He advanced on the two privates who, expecting to feel themselves borne with appalling swiftness through the air, closed their eyes apprehensively; but nothing seemed to happen, and they opened them again.

"Lumme!" said Alf in astonishment. "Good ole Eustace!"

The scene before them had changed with the suddenness of a cinematograph film. The dawn was still just breaking, but instead of the cheerless plains of France they saw the wooded hills and trim hedges of an English landscape. They were standing on a country road beside a camp of wooden huts. Not far away the spire of a church and the chimneys of a few houses rising above the drifting morning mist showed where a village stood; and as they tried to gather their wits together they heard a sound to which their ears had long been strangers--the distant rumble of an express train.

"Good ole Eustace--an' good ole Blighty!" said Bill softly. "Come on, Alf. There's a sentry at the gate. We'll report to 'im."

The sentry at once handed them over to the sergeant of the guard, who produced a piece of paper and a stubby pencil.

"Nice time o' day to come in, I don't think," he observed severely. "Overstayed yer week-end leave, I s'pose. Where's your passes?"

"We 'aven't got no passes, sergeant. We've...."

"Names, please," interrupted the catechist. "1287 'Iggins A. an' 2312 Grant W. Which comp'ny?"

"'C' Comp'ny, 5th M.F., B.E.F."

"Yes, yes," said the sergeant with heavy sarcasm. "You can say yer alphabet arterwards. An' I don't want yer past 'istory, neither. This ain't the B.E.F. an' I want to know which comp'ny you belong to 'ere."

"We dunno, sergeant. We been transferred from the B.E.F. an' we're just reportin'."

"What, at this time o' day, an' without any kit? All right, you needn't trouble to tell me any more. You tell it all to the C.O. when 'e sees you. 'E'll 'arf skin yer, I expect, for rollin' in at this time, because the last train for 'ere gets in at eight o'clock in the evening."

Alf and Bill sat in the guard-room, their first elation rather dashed. Once more things were turning out unexpectedly difficult. They were indeed back in Blighty, but were to be half-skinned as a result. If on top of this Eustace managed to make any mistake in the transfer, they might reasonably expect to be completely flayed by the colonel, who had the reputation (which had reached the brigade in France by means of the drafts he sent out to it) of being a fire-eater. Bill began to regret bitterly his impulsiveness in leaving the technical details of his scheme to Eustace; but he realized that it was now too late to do anything. He and Alf would be kept under strict surveillance until the time of their interview with the C.O., and there would be no possible chance of summoning Eustace and ascertaining just what he had done.

They decided to do nothing, and to hope for the best. Even a guard-room in Blighty seemed to them at that moment preferable to their billet in France.

Soon after breakfast the hour for the inquisition arrived and the two friends found themselves side by side "on the mat" before the great man, who was physically a very little man. Colonel Watts was a "dug-out." Some time before the war broke out he had retired from a very long and incredibly undistinguished military career with the rank of major, and had devoted himself to bullying his meek wife and generally making her life a misery. When the war began the gallant major, much to Mrs. Watts' relief, applied for and obtained command of a New Army battalion. Unfortunately, however, he managed to quarrel so violently with all his immediate superiors and most of his colleagues that the divisional general refused to take him to the front. Shortly before the division sailed for France the little man returned raging to Tunbridge Wells, discharged all his wife's servants, poisoned her dog, and proceeded to vent all his accumulated spleen on the poor lady herself. Eventually, only just in time to save Mrs. Watts' sanity, he was offered the command of the Territorial reserve battalion of the Middlesex Fusiliers, a post which he had held ever since.

He sat behind a very large table, with Captain Sandeman, his adjutant, standing beside him. Alf and Bill were marched in by the regimental sergeant-major, an unctuous person very different from the martinet who controlled the 5th Battalion at the front.

"Private Higgins, sir, and Private Grant," he announced--as who should say, "Mr. and Mrs. Platt-Harcourt, my lady!"

"Higgins!" repeated the Colonel, gazing ferociously at Alf from under his beetling eyebrows. "Higgins! Higgins!!"

"Yessir!" said Alf, thinking that confirmation was being required.

"Be quiet!" roared Colonel Watts, with such suddenness that Alf took a step backwards in alarm. "And stand still!"

"Stand still, man, and only speak when you are spoken to," said the oily voice of the R.S.M. in Alf's ear.

The colonel fixed the unfortunate Alf with a protruding eye, and continued his baleful glare until his victim was on the very verge of crying out. His one idea seemed to be to intimidate Alf; he paid no attention whatever to Bill, who was standing stiffly to attention, his eyes fixed in a lack-luster stare on the wall above the adjutant's head.

"Well?" the C.O. ground out at last between his teeth. The sergeant-major gave a consequential little cough and signed to the sergeant of the guard to give his evidence.

"These men arrived 'ere, sir, in the early hours of this mornin', about four o'clock, and failed to give any satisfactory account of themselves. They 'ad no kit, sir, an' no passes. They state that they 'ave been transferred to us from the Expeditionary Force, sir, but they 'ave no papers to prove it."

"Good God!" shouted the colonel. "This is disgraceful. More incompetence! If I've written one letter complaining of this kind of thing I've written a dozen. Men come here without papers, without kit, without orders, and expect us to look after 'em. The Army in France is one mass of incompetent fools, in my opinion. It's a scandal, Sandeman."

The adjutant said nothing. The C.O. hardly seemed to expect him to, for he swept on without a pause.

"If I'd my way, I'd scrap the whole lot of 'em, and have a few men who know their jobs put in instead. No papers, no nothing. Disgraceful! Where's your kit, man?"

Alf, finding that this question also was addressed to him, and having no reply ready, merely gaped.

"Speak up!" bawled the Colonel.

"L--l--lost it, sir."

The C.O. dashed his pen violently on to his desk, where it stuck quivering on its point, turned round in his chair and silently eyed his adjutant for ten palpitating seconds.

"D'ye hear that, Sandeman? He's lost it. Good God! What are we coming to?... The Government has fitted him out with a complete set of kit and he's lost it ... and how," he vociferated, turning round once more with such unexpected speed that Alf once more gave back a pace. "How d'you mean to tell me you lost it, eh?"

But Alf's inventive powers were exhausted, and Bill judged it time, at whatever risk to life and limb, to take a speaking part in the little drama.

"Overboard, sir, in the Channel," he said, without removing his eye from the wall. "Off of a ship," he added as an afterthought, in order that there should be no misunderstanding possible.

Colonel Watts appeared to regard this as the last straw. For a moment he seemed unable to articulate at all, and the hue of his countenance deepened through successive shades till it finally arrived at a congested purple. He hammered on his desk with his fist.

"I will not have my valuable time wasted in this way!" he roared. "Bring these men before me to-morrow, sergeant-major, and if I can't get a coherent account of them from some one, there'll be trouble. Incompetent fools!"

He puffed passionately out of the orderly-room and slammed the door, leaving it uncertain whether his last remark was addressed only to Alf and Bill, or whether it was not rather intended to include the adjutant, the R.S.M., the sergeant of the guard and the impassive privates acting as prisoners' escort. He was to be heard faintly outside in unkind criticism of the sentry's method of presenting arms. Then there was silence, and a general feeling as though the sun had come out.

"Prisoners and escort," began the R.S.M. "Right-TURN! Quick...."

"Wait, sergeant-major," said Captain Sandeman quietly. "I want to ask these men a question or two. Send the escort off."

Bill's heart sank. Captain Sandeman had lost the air of passive indifference which he wore as protective armor in the presence of Colonel Watts. He looked horribly intelligent and wide-awake.

"Now, listen to me," he said. "I don't understand your case at all. Are you rejoining from hospital?"

"No, sir. From the front. Transferred, sir."

"But why? And where are your papers?"

"Didn't 'ave no papers, sir. We was just told to report 'ere. The papers is comin' by post, I think, sir."

"Um. Which is your battalion, and company?"

"The fifth, sir--'C' Comp'ny."

Bill was beginning to realize that Eustace had, in his muddle-headed way, landed them in a very tight corner. He would have lied had he dared; but he knew that there must be scores of men serving now with the Reserve who had known both himself and Alf at the front.

"That's Captain Richards' company, isn't it?"

"Yessir. But the Captain went away on a course yesterday, sir, and Lieutenant Donaldson is in command now."

"_Yesterday?_ How d'you know that?"

Bill had seen his slip as soon as he made it.

"I 'eard 'e was goin' before I left, sir," he answered readily.

"Um. And you don't know why you've been sent back?"

"No, sir."

Captain Sandeman became suddenly stern.

"There is something very irregular about the whole business," he said. "I don't see how you can possibly have got across the Channel in any legitimate way without papers. The whole thing looks most fishy, and it seems to me that you two men are asking for very serious trouble. Now, I warn you, I give you an opportunity now of telling me all about it; but if you persist in that story about being transferred without any papers, I'll have to keep you safe here till I can find out the truth from Mr. Donaldson. Now, what have you to say?"

"Nothing, sir," said Bill quickly. For one moment he was afraid that Alf was going to lose his head and tell the incredible truth; he shot a glance of warning at his mate, who subsided; and the adjutant waited in vain for an answer to his appeal.

"Very well," he said. "Put 'em in the cells, sergeant-major."

The two unfortunates were accordingly marched away and were once more handed over to the sergeant of the guard.

"Cells for these two beauties, an' keep 'em safe, or it'll be worse for you. Deserters they look like. It's a court-martial case."

Alf quaked at this realization of his worse fears, while even Bill looked concerned.

"I've on'y one cell, sir," said the sergeant of the guard.

"Very well. Shove 'em in together. Can't be helped."

The R.S.M. went off.

The instant the key turned on the two men, Alf produced the Button and rubbed it.

"What wouldst thou have?" began Eustace, his deep voice reverberating round the little cell. "I am...."

"Stop it--they'll 'ear you!"

"They 'ave 'eard 'im," whispered Bill. "Quick, Alf."

The sergeant, who had heard the rumbling voice, was already fumbling with the stiff lock.

"Take us away," whispered Alf in trembling tones. "Anywhere out of 'ere. QUICK!"

Before the sergeant had opened the door the whole camp had faded from their view, and the two found themselves in a desolate waste, faced by a very puzzled and indignant djinn.

"Lumme, that was a near squeak!" gasped Alf.

"Yes," said Bill. He addressed Eustace in heated tones. "What the 'ell did you want to go an' land us in a mess like that for? Didn't Mr. 'Iggins say as plain as print it was a transfer we wanted. Don't you know nothing at all?"

"It's always the same," put in Alf parenthetically. "No common sense. Too slap-dash an' 'olesale."

But Eustace was ignorant of the nature of his offense. He was conscious only that he had had to be called in at a desperate crisis to rescue his master from danger. He was full of indignation at such sacrilege.

"Lord!" he said. "Command me that I should go to that impious one and instantly reduce him to ashes--both him and his family and all that are about him. Ill beseemeth it that any should lay impious hands upon the Lord of the Button, and live."

"'E's a bloodthirsty customer, ain't 'e?" said Bill in awed admiration. "Talk about 'olesale! Look 'ere, Eustace, you'll be getting us into 'orrible trouble if you don't look out. What was it you wanted to do--reduce the R.S.M. to ashes? We're in a bad enough 'ole as it is, but that would fair put the lid on. You wants to be a little more up to date. Me an' Mr. 'Iggins is on'y privates, you know; an' if we get monkeyin' with sergeant-majors there'll be 'ell on for all of us."

"Verily," said the djinn in perplexed tones, "I do not understand thy speech. Ill beseemeth it that any man should presume to order the comings and the goings of the Lord of the Button. Bid me abase this proud upstart, and thou shalt rule in his stead."

"No, thank you," said Alf. "I don't want to be no bloomin' orficer. I'm a plain man, I am. You see, Eustace, it's like this. In this 'ere war, every one's fightin'--soldiers an' civilians an' all. Now, I'm not a soldier by trade--fruit and vegetable salesman I am. So I 'as to obey the orficers an' the sergeants, 'cos they knows the job. If they'd come into the fruit an' vegetables not knowin' a carrot from a crisantlemum, they'd 'ave 'ad to obey me. See?"

"I don't think!" put in Bill. "Look 'ere, Eustace, your job's to get us out o' this 'ere mess. Just through yer bloomin' ignorance you're landed us in a proper 'ole. 'Ere we are; we've deserted from the front, an' we've broken arrest in the Reserve Battalion. 'Ow are we goin' to get out o' that, eh?"

Alf made a tentative suggestion, his mind on Colonel Watts.

"Better go back to France, 'adn't we?"

"I sh'd think we _'ad_." Bill's hopeless nostalgia of the day before was entirely forgotten. "Why, I'd sooner stay in France the rest o' the war than serve under that blighter we was before this mornin'. 'E was a corker."

"But if we're deserters," said Alf dismally, "'ow can we go back? Wouldn't they shoot us?"

Bill looked at his watch.

"Why, it's on'y ten o'clock now," he said. "They'd find we was gone at revally, so we've on'y been away about four hours. What's four hours when the battalion's restin'? They can't do much to us."

"Might stop our leave."

"True for you. So they might. Now, what can we ...? I got it. 'Ere, Eustace, put us down about 'arf a mile from the camp in France, will you? Alf, you tell 'im. 'E won't do it for me."

Alf complied. The familiar flat landscape reappeared before them and they welcomed it almost with joy.

"Now," said Bill impressively, "tell 'im to 'op over into the Boche lines an' bring us a prisoner. An' mind, none of 'is 'olesale ways! 'E'll bring a 'ole army corps over if you don't look out, an' then we'd look silly. Just one, tell 'im--a officer."

In a moment a fat and haughty-looking German officer stood beside them. When he saw the khaki tunics, his hand went to his side, but the two Tommies flung themselves upon him.

"Get 'is revolver, Alf," panted Bill. "That's the ticket. Now then, 'ands up, Fritz. You come with us. You're our blinkin' alibi."

"What are you?" asked the Boche, in excellent English. "You have, I suppose, escaped from your cage. I warn you, you English dogs, to be more respectful to your superiors. When you are caught it shall go hard with you. That a common English swine shall call _me_ Fritz."

"Nothin' to what you'll be called in a minute if you don't be'ave. Alf, I b'lieve the pore blighter thinks 'e's still in 'is own lines. What a sell for 'im."

"Come on, Bochie," said Alf, his finger on the trigger of the revolver. "Quick march."

"I will not move," declared the prisoner sullenly. "You cannot escape. There are men of mine on every side. Give me the revolver and I will see that you are not punished--much."

"Thank you for nothing," said Bill. "These 'ere are the British lines you're in, Fritz dear, an' you're our prisoner--see?"

The German, who still failed to grasp the situation, broke into a torrent of abuse and threats.

"Ain't 'e the little gentleman," said Alf in admiration.

Bill suddenly lost patience.

"'Ere," he said. "Let's kill 'im an' get another one. I can't stand 'ere arguin' all day. For one thing, the longer we stays away the bigger row we gets into. Now, Fritz, take yer choice. Will you come quiet, or will you 'ave a nice cheap funeral?"

The German, seeing that Bill was in earnest, and believing that his rescue could not be long delayed, marched stiffly off with a very bad grace. His astonishment was pitiable when he found himself being marched through little knots and groups of staring figures in khaki to a British camp. His bombastic air disappeared, and his knees sagged under him.

"Thought you'd 'ave a shock before long, Fritz," said Bill. "Comes o' not believin' a gentleman's word. Step lively, now. We're just 'ome, an' I want you to look yer best. After this," he added in an undertone to Alf, "they can't say very much to us, anyway."

Bill was right. In the excitement caused by their dramatic return, the authorities forgot to make any inquiry into the unauthorized absence of the heroes of the hour.

Chapter IX

Lieutenant Donaldson Becomes Suspicious

Some days later, Lieutenant Donaldson was sitting in "C" Company officers' billet, when the battalion intelligence officer entered.

"Hallo," said Donaldson. "You look worried. What's up?"

"I am worried. I wish you'd point out to your company what a nuisance they make themselves to their superiors when they go capturing Boche officers in the rest area. Ask 'em to think twice in future. It'd save trouble if they'd kill the next one they find and bury him on the spot."

"Why, what's up?"

"Well, the Staff's very anxious to know what this particular chap was doing and how he got there. I do see their point, you know. They take the highly reasonable view that as prisoners are not usually captured miles behind the lines in full uniform, this chap must have been up to some extra special form of devilry. The presumption is that he'd been spying, but they can't get a word of sense out of the man himself. He pretends not to know how he got into our lines. And the queer thing is that we found papers on him dated the same day as his capture--routine orders and so on--which tally with papers of the same date on other prisoners taken in the usual way. The thing's uncanny, b