bad time; for the officer must squeeze backwards and forwards, struggling to dispose properly his own sullen platoon, and it was hard for him to be patient with their stupidity, for, like them, he only longed to fling off his cursed equipment and lie down and sleep for ever. He, like them, had but one thought, that if there were to be no release from the hateful burden that clung to his back, and cut into his shoulders and ceaselessly impeded him, if there were to be no relief for his thirst and the urgent aching of all his body—he must soon sink down and scream....

III

Harry's platoon was settled in when I found him, hidden away somewhere in the third (Reserve) line. He had conscientiously posted a few sentries, and done all those things which a good platoon commander should do, and was lying himself in a sort of stupor of fatigue. Physically he was not strong, rather frail, in fact, for the infantry; he had a narrow chest and slightly round shoulders, and his heart would not have passed any civilian doctor; and—from my own experience—I knew that the march must have tried him terribly. But a little rest had soothed the intense nervous irritation whose origins I have tried to describe, and his spirit was as sturdy as ever. He struggled to his feet and leaned over the parados with me. The moon was now high up in the north-east; the Turks had ceased their rapid fire at moonrise, and now an immense peace wrapped the Peninsula. We were high up on the centre slopes of Achi Baba, and all the six miles which other men had conquered lay bathed in moonlight below us. Far away at the cape we could see the long, green lights of the hospital ships, and all about us were glow-worms in the scrub. Left and right the pale parapets of trenches crept like dim-seen snakes into the little valleys, and vanished over the opposite slopes. Only a cruiser off shore firing lazily at long intervals disturbed the slumberous stillness. No better sedative could have been desired.

'How did you like the march?' I said.

'Oh, all right; one of my men was wounded, I believe, but I didn't see him.'

'All right?' I said. 'Personally I thought it was damned awful; it's a marvel that any of us are here at all. I hear A Company's still adrift, as it is.'

'Well, anyhow we got here,' said Harry. 'What a wonderful spot this is. And look at those damned glow-worms.'

I was anxious to know what impression the night had made on Harry, but these and other answers gave me no real clue. I had a 

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