‘Where’ve you been?’ said Sergeant-Major Tozer. ‘I don’t seem to get much time these days, but I was lookin’ for you tonight. Thought we might go out an’ see what was doin’ in this bloody ’ole.’

‘Sergeant-Major,’ said Bourne, ‘we won’t go out. I’ll try and scrounge a bottle of whiskey, and we’ll have a spree tomorrow night in the company office, with Sergeant Hope and Corporal Jakes. Never mind how I’ll get it. You’re not supposed to know that: it’s not in Infantry Training.’

All the talk in the camp on the following morning was about Miller the deserter, who had been arrested near Calais, and had been brought back under escort.

‘Wish they’d shot the bugger, an’ saved us the trouble,’ was all Sergeant-Major Tozer said.

‘He gave you the slip all right, Sergeant-Major,’ said Sergeant Hope, with a laugh that sounded a little supercilious.

‘He gave me the slip all right,’ admitted Tozer; ‘but then he wasn’t a prisoner.’

A new regimental sergeant-major had come to them from another battalion some days earlier. Hope knew him a little, and said he was a pukka soldier, reserved and strict, but very reasonable. He came into A Company’s hut, and asked for Bourne, at half-past five that afternoon; and when Bourne came to him at the double, he was told to make himself look smart, as he was to go before the commanding-officer at six o’clock, about his commission. For the moment Bourne felt an almost uncontrollable desire to draw back, if possible; then he accepted the situation, and went to brush up and wash. While he was rolling on his puttees again, Sergeant Hope came to him.

‘D’you mind asking the regimental to come along tonight, too?’ he asked.

‘You ask him, Sergeant,’ said Bourne characteristically.

‘No bloody fear,’ said Hope. ‘I don’t mind letting him know what’s in the wind. He’s a jolly good sport, is old Traill, though he does stand a bit on his dignity; it will be all right if you tell him it’s just a kind of farewell drink together; but it wouldn’t do for us to ask him. He would think we had put you up to getting it; but after you’ve seen the Colonel you could ask him.’

A little reluctantly Bourne agreed; but he felt awkward about it, because after all he did not know the regimental, and the whole business was, to say the least’ irregular. As soon as he was dressed, the regimental looked him over.

‘As you are ready,’ he said, ‘we may as well walk down. I want to have a talk to you.’

They set off together, walking slowly, and even stopping; and he had his talk. He knew as much about Bourne as anybody in the battalion knew, evidently; and his remarks were very much to the point. Discipline was discipline, he said; though one allowed a certain latitude to the reasonable man.

‘You’re quite right to be friendly with everyone, so long as you behave yourself, and don’t try to take advantage. All the same, you know, some of the men with whom you’re friendly may be all right in their place, but you don’t want to judge the whole army by them. You will have to forget a lot, and begin again; that is, you will have to take a different view. You know the men. But when you’re an officer you won’t know your men. You’ll be lucky if you know your N.C.O.s, and you’ll have to leave a lot of it to them. You’ll have to keep them up to the mark; but you’ll have to trust them, and let them know it.’