I know no rabbit that could have pricked up his ears quicker than did the pivotal men at the sound of that magic word.  “Hail, Roley!” we cried; “we who are about to be demobilised salute you!”

That evening a select conclave of super-scroungers met with great solemnity.  Beds for the men and coal for all—­certainly, and then we would start collecting.  By the morrow each man slept in luxury, while subalterns from other companies came in to warm themselves by our roaring fires.  Not till then did we feel justified in turning our thoughts to the furnishing of the baronial hall at home.

Some day, we pivotal men are still ready to believe, when demobilisation is nearly complete we shall return to our bowler hats and civic respectability, but meantime, let me tell you, respectable elderly subalterns enjoy things like clambering over a forbidden Bosch train in search of loot.  When we had climbed to the end of the trucks and were thoroughly dirty, we found we had done very badly.  The souvenirs were there all right, but no matter how interesting and desirable it may be, you simply cannot pack up a field-gun and send it home—­the tail part does stick out so.

Chardenal and I had picked up the best thing we could find, brass cartridge cases (about three feet high) of a 5.9 gun, and some shorter eight-inch affairs.  It was hard work.  I carried four of the former and Chardenal carried two of each, and we looked as if we had come to mend a main drain.  Not having been in the Army long enough to have lost all sense of shame, Chardenal began by trying to hide his cases under his British warm.  His biggest effort at concealment was made when passing the sentry of the Brigade Headquarters’ guard, and the noise he made doing it brought the whole guard out.  However, being sentries, they took very little notice of what we did, except that the N.C.O. in charge certainly did pick up one of the dropped cases and hand it to Chardenal.  This was after I had tried to help him and we had dropped the whole lot.

After this Chardenal gave up all idea of concealment and tried to express by his carriage that he accepted no responsibility whatever for the souvenirs.  He didn’t want the things, not he!  They were there, certainly, and—­well, yes, he was carrying them, but why he was carrying them (here he would have shrugged his shoulders if he could) he really couldn’t tell you; it was a matter of absolute indifference to him, anyway.  Histrionically I have no doubt it was a great piece of work, but the only possible inference anybody could have drawn was that he might have been carrying them to oblige me—­which I resented.

Heavens, how our arms ached, for it was over two miles to the billet!  A collision of milk-trains could hardly have made more noise than we did as we clashed and clanged down the main street.  Of course we met everybody we knew.  People we hadn’t seen for years, people we didn’t like, people who didn’t like us—­all seemed to have been paraded especially for the occasion.