Now, Charles, be it understood that I am not saying anything for or against the trade of Assisting Military Landing Officers; I have no feeling with regard to it one way or the other.  For all I know it may require a technical knowledge so profound that any man who can master it is already half-way on the road to greatness.  On the other hand, it may require no technical knowledge at all, and, the whole of a Military Landing Officer’s duties being limited to watching other people working, the Assistant Military Landing Officer’s task may consist of nothing more complicated than watching the Military Landing Officer watching the military land.  If this is so, the work may be so simple that, once a man has satisfied the very rigid social test to be passed by all aspirants to so distinguished a position, he must simply be a silly ass if he doesn’t automatically become a great man, after a walk or two up and down the quay.  I repeat, I know nothing whatever of the calling of A.M.L.O., and I could not tell you without inquiry whether it is an ancient and honourable profession or an unscrupulous trade very jealously watched by the Law.  I have some friends in it and I have many friends out of it, and the former should not be inflated with conceit nor the latter unduly depressed when I pronounce the deliberate opinion that the best known and greatest thing in the B.E.F. is without doubt the A.M.L.O. at ——.

Though it is months since I cast eyes on him, I can see him now, standing self-confidently on his own private quay, with the most chic of Virginian cigarettes smouldering between his aristocratic lips and the very latest and most elegant of Bond Street Khaki Neckwear distinguishing him from the mixed crowd about him.  Every one else is distraught; even matured Generals, used to the simple and irresponsible task of commanding troops in action, are a little unnerved by the difficulties and intricacies of embarking oneself militarily.  He on whom all the responsibility rests remains aloof.  A smile, half cynical, plays across his proud face.  He knows he has but to flick the ash from his cigarette and the Army will spring to attention and the Navy will get feverishly to work.  He has but to express consent by the inclination of his head and sirens will blow, turbine engines will operate as they would never operate for anybody else, thousands of tons of shipping will rearrange itself, and even the sea will become less obstreperous and more circumspect in its demeanour, adjusting, if need be, its tides to suit his wishes.

I take it my condition is typical when I am “proceeding” (one will never come and go again in our time; one will always proceed)—­when I am proceeding to the U.K.  The whole thing is too good to believe, and I don’t believe it till I have some written and omnipotent instructions, in my pocket and am actually moving towards the sea.  The youngest and keenest schoolboy returning home for his holidays is a calm, collected, impassionate and even dismal man of the