But ... I take it you are in this business to serve your country, Hannay?” 

 “I reckon I am,” I said. “I am certainly not in it for my health.” 

 He looked at my leg, where the doctors had dug out the shrapnel fragments, and smiled quizzically. 

 “Pretty fit again?” he asked. 

 “Tough as a sjambok. I thrive on the racket and eat and sleep like a schoolboy.” 

 He got up and stood with his back to the fire, his eyes staring abstractedly out of the window at the wintry park. 

 “It is a great game, and you are the man for it, no doubt. But there are others who can play it, for soldiering today asks for the average rather than the exception in human nature. It is like a big machine where the parts are standardized. You are fighting, not because you are short of a job, but because you want to help England. How if you could help her better than by commanding a battalion—or a brigade—or, if it comes to that, a division? How if there is a thing which you alone can do? Not some embusque business in an office, but a thing compared to which your fight at Loos was a Sunday-school picnic. You are not afraid of danger? Well, in this job you would not be fighting with an army around you, but alone. You are fond of tackling difficulties? Well, I can give you a task which will try all your powers. Have you anything to say?” 

 My heart was beginning to thump uncomfortably. Sir Walter was not the man to pitch a case too high. 

 “I am a soldier,” I said, “and under orders.” 

 “True; but what I am about to propose does not come by any conceivable stretch within the scope of a soldier’s duties. I shall perfectly understand if you decline. You will be acting as I should act myself—as any sane man would. I would not press you for worlds. If you wish it, I will not even make the proposal, but let you go here and now, and wish you good luck with your battalion. I do not wish to perplex a good soldier with impossible decisions.” 

 This piqued me and put me on my mettle. 

 “I am not going to run away before the guns fire. Let me hear what you propose.” 

 Sir Walter crossed to a cabinet, unlocked it with a 

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