‘Brains save sweat,’ said the colonel. ‘Teach the men to think.’

‘I’ll teach them to fight,’ said Maddison. Sometimes he had hope for his men; sometimes he felt kinship with them. When a man came crashing through a barbed-wire obstacle, the pencil-lines of blood seeping up from the scratches on his face; when a platoon came streaming over a wall like a pack of hounds, Major Maddison would feel excited and close to them; and when, especially, he went down as he often did to see them going through the showers he would stand in the doorway of the long, noisy hut, watching the fine slender young men padding about, naked and gleaming wet behind veils of steam; he would grow exultant with emotions which he could not fathom and would walk away flushed with love for these men of his – until, looking down into the lane below the camp, he would see a soldier strolling with his girl and would feel sick and contemptuous once more.

The colonel stood up behind his table. ‘You’ll teach them to fight,’ he said curtly, ‘and I’ll tell you how. No more sixty-nine grenades in huts. No more of your little pranks with guncotton. Keep out of trouble, Maddison. There’s going to be enough trouble for us all in a very little while.’

Maddison smiled grimly. ‘Trouble you call it? I say speed the day.’

The colonel could stand the other man’s presence no more. ‘That’s all,’ he said. ‘I shall treat it as a disciplinary matter next time.’ He looked at his wristwatch. ‘I think I’ll get a wash before dinner,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in the mess.’

‘I wish I could make up my mind about that man.’ The colonel, back in his own hut, was drying his hands on a towel and speaking to Noel Norman.

‘Maddison?’ said Norman languidly. ‘The men call him the Mad Major. He’s a horrid little tick. He gives me the creeps. He was a superintendent, or something, before the war, in the police force.’

‘Yes,’ said the colonel. ‘When he sits there hammergagging about the mystic communion of soldiers I don’t feel it’s safe to trust my men with him. Yet he’s a brave man – a good soldier – I’m tempted to say the best officer in my battalion. Better than you, Noel.’

‘That isn’t much of a recommendation.’

‘Yes,’ said the colonel. ‘I can’t help respecting him for that.’

There was an uneasy silence for a moment.

‘Heard from the boy yet?’ asked Norman.

‘No,’ said Colonel Pothecary. ‘There’s no news yet. But the shipping office says it’s quite normal. They’re away at sea for weeks at a time.’ His voice was obstinately cheerful. ‘Can’t post letters at sea, you know.’

‘Of course,’ said Major Norman. ‘Let’s go down to dinner.’