"They're afraid," said the lieutenant. "Afraid we'll come back and turn their government appetite over dixie." He laughed sharply. "Poor little shivering fools! Why, there aren't ten thousand British troops left in the world outside of England. Not one man where there was once a thousand. We've battered French and German and Russian and Italian and German again until we're as few as they. First we came over to get machine tools and food. Then, with one excuse or another they began to tell us false tales of impending invasion but it has been two years since we could locate anything you could call a political entity on this continent. We can't go home because we'll take the sickness. And what are we here? We're mixed up with fifty nationalities, commanded by less than a hundred officers, scattered from Egypt to Archangel. Ten thousand men and ten million, twenty million graves. Outcasts, men without a country. A whole generation wiped out by shot and starvation and sickness and those that are left scarcely able to keep belly, ribs and jacket together. And they're afraid of us in England!"

It had its effect upon Malcolm. He had been out only two years. Sent originally full of hope and swagger with a message for General Victor from the supreme council and never afterwards allowed to return home. For a moment he forgot his fear of a field officer, remembering instead a certain girl, weeping on a dock. "I'll get back some way. It's not final. I'll see her again!"

"Not under Victor, you won't."

"Wait," cautioned Malcolm, afraid again. "He's your superior officer."

"Perhaps," and in that word Malcolm read direful things.

"But you'll obey him?" said Malcolm.

"And go back to G.H.Q. Certainly."

Malcolm sighed a little with relief. How dull these field officers were at times! Didn't they ever hear anything? But then, thirty or more outfits had innocently obeyed that order, little knowing that they would be stripped of their commands immediately upon arrival and asked to be off and out of sight of the offended staff. But, no, the lieutenant would not understand until the whole thing was over. There was nothing unreasonable in this to Malcolm. Importance now was measured only by the number of troops an officer commanded. It was not likely that the staff would leave mutinous field officers at the head of 

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