The day after they went to the baths he was entering orders in the book, when the commanding-officer came in, and asked brusquely for a sheet of foolscap and a pencil. Bourne got what was wanted and returned to his place, completing the entry and closing the book softly. He never did any typewriting while the commanding-officer was in the room or during orders-hour. So he looked out of the window as the various guards fell in for inspection. The orderly officer, Mr Sothern, and the regimental were on parade, and made a preliminary inspection of the men. Then the regimental came over to the orderly-room, entered it, and saluted. The adjutant put on his cap, and went out of the room, and the regimental followed him. They were in the passage leading to the front-door, when Bourne, looking out of the window, saw a blinding flash followed instantly by an explosion, and a shower of glass fell on the table in front of him. For an instant the street was a blur; but he saw the regimental rush out, evidently shouting orders to the men, who took cover. Nine were left lying on the paving-stones. Then there was a second explosion, evidently in the other street. Bourne’s first instinct was to rush out and try to help. He flung a foot over the form on which he sat, and turning, saw the commanding-officer shrinking in his chair, eyes staring out of a blank face, and teeth bared in a curious snarl, the old colour-sergeant with his fingertips on the floor in the posture of an ape walking, and Johnson cowering against the wall. Reynolds was standing up to it, cool, still, as though he listened.

‘Sit still,’ whispered the signaller to Bourne warningly; but as the corporal went to the door, Bourne followed him.

‘Can we help?’ he said quietly.

‘No,’ said the corporal sternly. ‘The stretcher-bearers are there already. You shouldn’t have left your place. Come outside with me, now.’

They went into the street, and the adjutant and orderly-officer brushed by them into the orderly-room. It was extraordinarily still again, and the last of the wounded was being carried away by the stretcher-bearers. The C.O., with Captain Havelock and the orderly-officer, came out again and disappeared round the corner into the main street, so that Bourne and the corporal were the only two left on the scene. They looked at the blood on the paved roadway, and then up to the sky, where a few puffs of white smoke showed still against the blue, but, as they watched them, drifted and faded gradually from sight.

‘So much for their bloody parades,’ said Bourne bitterly to the corporal.

‘I suppose it’s war,’ answered Reynolds with a touch of fatalism.

‘War,’ exclaimed Bourne. ‘They post men with fieldglasses and whistles to give warning of enemy aircraft; the troops are ordered to show themselves as little as possible in the streets, and to keep close to the houses, and the police are told to make themselves a nuisance to any thoughtless kid who forgets; and then, having taken all these precautions, fifty men are paraded in the middle of the street opposite the orderly-room, as a target, I suppose, and are kept standing there for twenty minutes or half-an-hour. It’s a bloody nice kind of war.’