* * * * *

He was awakened by the Major.  It was about four o’clock, and the remainder of the Brigade was already on the move.  The posts guarding the roads were hastily drawn in, and his Platoon took its place in the Company as the Battalion marched by.

He felt extremely pleased with the whole adventure of Villiers.  It was the first and only time that he had had a completely detached command.  He had felt the intoxication of undisputed authority; there had been a subtle pleasure in the thought that, as far as help or supervision were concerned, he was absolutely alone and that the responsibility for anything that might happen hung exclusively on his shoulders.  The whole day had seemed like a Sunday to him—­the first real Sunday since ages and ages ago he had left England, the easy land of peace.

There had been an air of quietness about that afternoon which is peculiar to Sundays, and he congratulated himself on the hours of sleep that he had been able to put in.

From his own point of view the whole war began to seem like an organised campaign of things in general to hustle him about in the heat until he died from want of sleep!

CHAPTER XV

THE LAST LAP

On every side the results of long marches were only too plain.  Spirits were damped.  There were fewer songs, and no jokes.  The men were not by any means “downhearted,” and would rather have died than admit that they were depressed, but the brightness was all rubbed off, and a moroseness, a dense, too-tired-to-worry taciturnity had set in that was almost bullet-proof.

Although the familiar sounds of artillery boomed away quite close to them they were not deployed, and when it was dark they bivouacked along the side of the road.

That night the Colonel addressed the Officers at some length.  “The old man” always had an impressive way of speaking, and darkness and overwrought nerves doubtless magnified this.  He spoke in subdued tones, as if awed by the intense silence of the night.

We all could tell where we were, he said—­a few miles east, or even south-east by east of the French Capital.  Our base, Havre, lay to the north-west, with the enemy in between.  It was unnecessary to say anything further.  The facts spoke for themselves.  The British Army was up against it, none could tell what would happen next.  One duty, however, was self-evident, and that was to watch the food-supply.

Things were going to be serious.  Henceforward the army was to be on half rations, and he knew what that meant.  He had been on “half rations” in the South African War, and he had seen a man give a franc for a dirty biscuit, and he knew what it was for soldiers on active service to be hungry.  He ordered us, he begged and prayed them, to spare no energy in stopping waste of any description, and making their men realise the gravity of the position.  No Officer was in future to draw any rations from the Company Cookers, and the Mess Sergeant had somehow procured and victualed a mess-cart.