Bedford is one of the great school towns of England.  Low, rolling hills lie about it; the river Ouse, a wee, quiet stream, runs through it.  Schooling must be in the air of Bedford!  Three great schools for boys are there, and two for girls.  And Liberty is in the air of Bedford, too, I think!  John Bunyan was born two miles from Bedford, and his old house still stands in Elstow, a little village of old houses and great oaks.  And it was in Bedford Jail that Bunyan was imprisoned because he would fight for the freedom of his own soul.

John was waiting to greet us, and he looked great.  He had two stars now where he had one before—­he had been promoted to first lieutenant.  There were curious changes in the laddie I remembered.  He was bigger, I thought, and he looked older, and graver.  But that I could not wonder at.  He had a great responsibility.  The lives of other men had been entrusted to him, and John was not the man to take a responsibility like that lightly.

I saw him the first day I was at Bedford, leading some of his men in a practice charge.  Big, braw laddies they were—­all in their kilts.  He ran ahead of them, smiling as he saw me watching them, but turning back to cheer them on if he thought they were not fast enough.  I could see as I watched him that he had caught the habit of command.  He was going to be a good officer.  It was a proud thought for me, and again I was rejoiced that it was such a son that I was able to offer to my country.

They were kept busy at that training camp.  Men were needed sore in France.  Recruits were going over every day.  What the retreat from Mons and the Battle of the Marne had left of that first heroic expeditionary force the first battle of Ypres had come close to wiping out.  In the Ypres salient our men out there were hanging on like grim death.  There was no time to spare at Bedford, where men were being made ready as quickly as might be to take their turn in the trenches.

But there was a little time when John and I could talk.

“What do you need most, son?” I asked him.

“Men!” he cried.  “Men, Dad, men!  They’re coming in quickly.  Oh, Britain has answered nobly to the call.  But they’re not coming in fast enough.  We must have more men—­more men!”

I had thought, when I asked my question, of something John might be needing for himself, or for his men, mayhap.  But when he answered me so I said nothing.  I only began to think.  I wanted to go myself.  But I knew they would not have me—­yet awhile, at any rate.  And still I felt that I must do something.  I could not rest idle while all around me men were giving themselves and all they had and were.

Everywhere I heard the same cry that John had raised: 

“Men!  Give us men!”

It came from Lord Kitchener.  It came from the men in command in France and Belgium—­that little strip of Belgium the Hun had not been able to conquer.  It came from every broken, maimed man who came back home to Britain to be patched up that he might go out again.  There were scores of thousands of men in Britain who needed only the last quick shove to send them across the line of enlistment.  And after I had thought a while I hit upon a plan.