Small Visitor. "And how is your mother, Penelope?"
Penelope. "Thank you, poor mummie's a bit below herself this morning—what with the cook and the Kaiser."
VIII.
Dear Charles,—We have got a move on at last. We don't know where we are going or why we are going or even if we are really going at all. It may be that we are on our way to the Continent; it may be that we are on our way to the coast to assume the defensive; it may be that the authorities are pulling our legs and are watching from behind the hedges en route to see how we take it. We march on till we are told to stop. We stop till we are told to march on.
I was, as you know, in London on Sunday. Having had a trying week I sought a change of air to recuperate my health. I also sought to recover my self-respect by being saluted in my native parks. Full of the good things of this world I returned in the evening to ———
[Censor. Now then, don't you give it away.
Myself. But, dash it all, he knows where I'd come from.
Censor. That may be, but it's not to get about where you are.
Myself. But I'm not there now. I'm at ———
Censor. H'sh.]
I got to my little nest (anonymous) at 10.30 P.M. and found the following among other orders awaiting me: "Company Officers will hold their companies in readiness to move at short notice." "Will they?" I asked, and leapt lightly into my bed; never a wise thing to do when your bed consists of a stick or two and a bit of canvas... I was collecting myself on the floor when a corporal came in, wearing that significant, nay sinister, look which corporals assume when they bring messages from orderly room. Having cursed him roundly for the collapse of my bed (in military life you may curse anybody for anything, provided he is an inferior) I told him to proceed and let me know the worst. "We move at 8 A.M., Sir," said he. "And what is it now?" I asked. "11.5 P.M., Sir," said he. "Then," said I, "I have under nine hours to pack up all my goods, dividing them into those which I shall carry myself on my for-light-articles-only back, those which the transport will carry and those which I shall leave here for Providence to send home; to inspect my half-company, its feet, its rifles, its packs, its kit-bags and the thousand-and-one other things which are its; to feed my men and myself and gather together a day's ration for both of us and to attend to all those little odds and ends which will inevitably crop up when one is about to leave one's headquarters and never see them again. All this must be done by 8 A.M. you say?" "The battalion will march to the rendezvous at 7.15, Sir," said he. "Reveillé at 5.30, breakfast at 6.30, and sick parade at 6.45," he concluded, adding, with sarcasm more effective than any of my own, "Good night, Sir."
I went straight to sleep. What else could I do? Obviously the suggested programme was impossible of completion in the time allotted; why then attempt it? I decided to obey orders: to reveillé at 5.30, breakfast at 6.30, and then to start getting ready and continue doing so till called for. If the worst came to the worst, I should become a sick man and parade accordingly. It struck me as I dozed off that in civil life the very last thing an invalid would attempt would be to parade.
In supposing that I should at least be thorough about my sleep, I reckoned without my old though not always welcome friend, Banner. His view is that when a crisis arrives it is up to the people involved to be at least busy, if not worse. To him commotion is essential, and he has always distrusted our adjutant because the only thing he did on
