The rest of us, being highly favoured persons, got off without ceremony, and made for the Pullman.  As the train drew out of the station and gathered speed I looked out upon the countryside as it raced past us.  England!  Past weald and down, past field and hedgerow, croft and orchard, cottage and mansion, now over the chalk with its spinneys of beech and fir, now over the clay with its forests of oak and elm.  The friends of one’s childhood, purple scabious and yellow toad-flax, seemed to nod their heads in welcome; and the hedgerows were festive with garlands of bryony and Old Man’s Beard.  The blanching willows rippled in the breeze, and the tall poplars whispered with every wind.  I looked down the length of the saloon, and everywhere I saw the blithe and eager faces of England’s gallant sons who had fought, and would fight again, to preserve this heritage from the fire and sword of bloody sacrilege.  Fairer than the cedars of Lebanon were these russet beeches, nobler than the rivers of Damascus these amber streams; and the France of our new affections was not more dear.

Twilight was falling as the guard came round and adjured us to shut out the prospect by drawing the blinds.  As we glided over the Thames I drew the blind an inch or two aside and caught a vision of the mighty city steeped in shadows, and the river gleaming dully under the stars like a wet oilskin.  At a word from the attendant I released the blind and shut out the unfamiliar nocturne.  Men rose to their feet, and there was a chorus of farewells.

“So long, old chap, see you again at battalion headquarters.”

“Good-bye, old thing, we meet next week at H.Q.”

“To-morrow night at the Savoy—­rather!  You must meet my sister.”

As I alighted on the platform I saw a crowd of waiting women.  “Hullo, Mother!” “Oh, darling!” I turned away.  I was thinking of that platform next week when these brief days, snatched from the very jaws of death, would have run their all too brief career and the greetings of joy would be exchanged for heart-searching farewells.

* * * * *

I was dining at my club with two friends, one of them a young Dutch attache, the other a barrister of my Inn.  We did ourselves pretty well, and took our cigars into the smoking-room, which was crowded.  Some men in a corner were playing chess; the club bore, decent enough in peace but positively lethal in war, was demonstrating to a group of impatient listeners that the Staff work at G.H.Q. was all wrong, when, catching sight of me, he came up and said, “Hullo, old man, back from the Front?  When will the war end?” I returned the same answer as a certain D.A.A.G. used to provide for similar otiose questions:  “Never!”

“Never!  Hullo, what’s that?”

Every one in the room suddenly rose to their feet, the chess players rising so suddenly that they overturned the board.  “Damn it, and it was my move, I could have taken your queen,” said one of them.  Outside there was a noise like the roaring of the lion-house at the Zoo; your anti-aircraft gun has a growl of its own.  “They’re here,” said some one, and we all made for the terrace.