“Oh, shut up, Bear, and don’t be an Ass,” implored Trooper Burke (formerly Desmond Villiers FitzGerald) ... “but I admit, all the same, there’s lots of worse prog in the Officers’ Mess than a crisp crust generously bedaubed with the rich jellified gravy that (occasionally) lurks like rubies beneath the fatty soil of dripping.”

“Sound plan to think so, anyway,” agreed Trooper Little (ci devant Man About Town and the Honourable Bertie Le Grand).  “Reminds me of a proverb I used to hear in Alt Heidelberg, ’What I have in my hand is best’.”

“Qui’ sho,” murmured Trooper Bear with a seraphic smile, “an’ wha’ I have in my ‘place of departed spirits,’ my tummy, is better.  Glor’us mixshure.  Earned an honest penny sheven sheparate times cleaning the ’coutrements of better men ... ’an look at me for shevenpence’ ...” and he slept happily on Dam’s shoulder.

In liquor, Trooper Bear was, if possible, gentler, kinder, and of sweeter disposition than when sober; wittier, more hopelessly lovable and disarming.  These eight men—­the “gentlemen-rankers” of the Queen’s Greys, made it a point of honour to out-Tommy “Tommy” as troopers, and, when in his company, to show a heavier cavalry-swagger, a broader accent, a quiffier “quiff,” a cuttier cutty-pipe, a smarter smartness; to groom a horse better, to muck out a stall better, to scrub a floor better, to spring more smartly to attention or to a disagreeable “fatigue,” and to set an example of Tomminess from turning out on an Inspection Parade to waxing a moustache.

Trooper Bear professed to specialize as a model in the carrying of liquor “like a man and a soldier”.  When by themselves, they made it a point of honour to behave and speak as though in the clubs to which they once belonged, to eat with washen hands and ordered attire, to behave at table and elsewhere with that truest of consideration that offends no man willingly by mannerism, appearance, word or act, and which is the whole Art of Gentility.

They carefully avoided any appearance of exclusiveness, but sought every legitimate opportunity of united companionship, and formed a “mess” of eight at a table which just held that number, and on a couple of benches each of which exactly fulfilled the slang expression “room for four Dragoons on a form”.

It was their great ambition to avoid the reproach of earning the soubriquet “gentleman-ranker,” a term that too often, and too justly, stinks in the nostrils of officer, non-commissioned officer, and man (for, as a rule, the “gentleman-ranker” is a complete failure as a gentleman and a completer one as a ranker).

To prove a rule by a remarkably fine exception, these eight were among the very smartest and best troopers of one of the smartest and best Corps in the world—­and to Damocles de Warrenne, their “Society of the Knights of the dirty Square Table” was a Rock and a Salvation in the midst of a howling sea of misery—­a cool pool in a searing branding Hell.