“Who’s this fellow?”

The Adjutant replied smoothly: 

“Mr. Cannon, sir.”

The Colonel said: 

“He’s got a devilish odd way of saluting.  I must go now.”  And jumped up and went cyclonically as far as the door.  At the door he paused and looked George full in the face, glaring.

“You came to me with a special recommendation?” he demanded loudly.

“Colonel Rannion kindly recommended me, sir.”

“General Rannion, sir.  Haven’t you seen this morning’s Times?  You should read your Gazette.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re the celebrated architect?”

“I’m an architect, sir.”

“I wish you would condescend to answer, yes or no, sir.  That’s the second time.  I say—­you’re the celebrated architect?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, remember this.  When you come into the Army what you were before you came into the Army has not the slightest importance.”

“Yes, sir.”

Colonel Hullocher glared in silence for a moment, and was gone.  The clerk slipped out after him.

The Adjutant rose: 

“Now, Cannon, we’re all very busy.”

And shook hands.

IV

The same afternoon, indeed within about two hours of his entrance into the Army, George found himself driving back from Wimbledon to London in a motor-bus.

Colonel Hullocher had vanished out of his world, and he had been sent to another and still more frowzy public-house which was the Headquarters of No. 2 Battery of the Second Brigade.  He was allotted to No. 2 Battery, subject to the approval of Major Craim, the commanding officer.  Major Craim was young and fair and benevolent, and at once approvingly welcomed George, who thereupon became the junior subaltern of the Battery.  The other half-dozen officers, to whom he was introduced one by one as they came in, seemed amiable and very well-mannered, if unduly excited.  When, immediately before lunch, the Major was called away to lunch with Colonel Hullocher, the excitement of the mess seemed to boil over.  The enormous fact was that the whole Division—­yeomanry, infantry, and artillery—­had been ordered to trek southward the next morning.  The Division was not ready to trek; in particular the Second Brigade of its artillery, and quite specially Battery No. 2 of the Second Brigade, was not ready to trek.  Nevertheless it would trek.  It might even trek to France.  Southward was Franceward, and there were those who joyously believed that this First Line Territorial Division was destined to lead the Territorial Army in France.

All the officers had a schoolboyish demeanour; all of them called one another by diminutives ending in ‘y’; all of them were pretty young.  But George soon divided them into two distinct groups—­those who worried about the smooth working of the great trek, and those who did not.  Among the former was Captain Resmith, the second in command, a dark man with a positive, strong voice, somewhat similar to George in appearance.  Captain Resmith took George very seriously, and promised to initiate him personally into as many technical mysteries as could be compressed into one afternoon.  Then a Major Tumulty, middle-aged and pale, came hurriedly into the stuffy room and said without any prologue: