Of course he was.  I have known, in my time, of many disappointments.  It is not every recommendation for honours that becomes effective.  I congratulated him, however, and swore to secrecy.

“It’s all luck,” said he.  “Just because a man happens to be spotted.  If my regiment got its deserts, every Jack man would walk about in a suit of armour made of Victoria Crosses.  Give me some more tea, mother.”

“The thing I shall never understand, dear,” she said, artlessly, looking up at him, while she handed him his cup, “is when you see a lot of murderous Germans rushing at you with guns and shells and bayonets, how you are not afraid.”

He threw back his head and laughed in his debonair fashion; but I watched him narrowly and I saw the corners of his mouth twitch for the infinitesimal fraction of a second.

“Oh, sometimes we’re in an awful funk, I assure you,” he replied gaily.  “Ask Meredyth.”

“We may be,” said I, “but we daren’t shew it—­I’m speaking of officers.  If an officer funks he’s generally responsible for the death of goodness knows how many men.  And if the men funk they’re liable to be shot for cowardice in the face of the enemy.”

“And what happens to officers who are afraid?”

“If it’s known, they get broke,” said I.

Boyce swallowed his tea at a gulp, set down the cup, and strode to the window.  There was a short pause.  Presently he turned.

“Physical fear is a very curious thing,” he said in a voice unnecessarily loud.  “I’ve seen it take hold of men of proved courage and paralyse them.  It’s just like an epileptic fit—­beyond a man’s control.  I’ve known a fellow—­the most reckless, hare-brained daredevil you can imagine—­to stand petrified with fear on the bank of a river, and let a wounded comrade drown before his eyes.  And he was a good swimmer too.”

“What happened to him?” I asked.

He met my gaze for a moment, looked away, and then met it again—­ it seemed defiantly.

“What happened to him?  Well—­” there was the tiniest possible pause—­a pause that only an uneasy, suspicious repository of the abominable story of Vilboek’s Farm could have noticed—­“Well, as he stood there he got plugged—­and that was the end of him.  But what I—­”

“Was he an officer, dear?”

“No, no, mother, a sergeant,” he answered abruptly, and in the same breath continued.  “What I was going to say is this.  No one as far as I know has ever bothered to work out the psychology of fear.  Especially the sudden thing that hits a man’s heart and makes him stand stock-still like a living corpse—­unable to move a muscle—­all his willpower out of gear—­just as a motor is out of gear.  I’ve seen a lot of it.  Those men oughtn’t to be called cowards.  It’s as much a fit, say, as epilepsy.  Allowances ought to made for them.”

It was a warm day, the windows were closed, my valetudinarian hostess having a horror of draughts, and a cheery fire was blazing up the chimney.  Boyce took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.