‘Would you go back?’ I asked, after a while. ‘Yes?’

‘Yes. We’d not be asked,’ he said in heavy tones. ‘We’d be conscripted. Well,’—he shrugged his shoulders,— ‘every man has it coming to him some time.’

‘Conscripted? Good God!’ I cried, ‘would you go for that? They’d call me up amongst the first. I wouldn’t go.’

‘It’s easy to say that now.’

‘Why should you be called up, Hugh?’ Terry inquired in a strained voice.

‘Oh, having been in the Terriers.’ I avoided her eyes. ‘I think you swear to take up arms in defence of your king and country.’

‘You’d go?’ Her voice had the horror of death.

‘We wouldn’t be asked,’ Duncan explained.

‘Christ, I wouldn’t go,’ I said in a rage. ‘No, nor I wouldn’t be flung in jail and beaten and abused, neither. I’ll tell you what I’d do, I’d take a rifle and plenty of ammunition and hide amongst the hills, and if they wanted me they could come and take me, but not alive.’

‘Back to your cave, Hugh,’ Duncan said.

‘Any place would do me,’ I rushed on. ‘Oh, I’d fight all right, I’m no pacifist when it comes to defending my own right, but I’ll not fight in any bloody stupid war. War’s not fun any longer; it’s murder, and I’m not a murderer.’

‘You’d be a lot safer and more comfortable in the army, Hugh,’ Duncan declared. ‘You might get a cushy job. Better than lying out on the hill, cold and hungry, scared of every sound and move.’

‘Half an hour ago you were praising the men of old for lying out on the hill,’ I told him.

‘They could do it.’

‘So can I, and so I shall,’ I answered wildly. ‘I saw as much of the army as I want and I’ve heard enough of war from you to know I won’t take part in it. Better starve and shiver than be a frightened slave.’

When Duncan went away Terry said, ‘I didn’t know you’d been a Territorial, Hugh.’

‘I was a stupid young fool,’ I told her shortly.

‘But why?’ she wanted to know. ‘It’s not the sort of thing I’d imagine attracting you.’

‘I was hard up and a crowd of us fancied the holiday. You get five pounds for attending the summer camp.’

‘My little mercenary! Were you a good soldier, Hugh?’

‘No, I was not. I don’t want to hear more about it. I told you I was a young fool.’

‘How in the world did you let yourself be disciplined?’ she persisted.