“Good boy!” said the officer to Peter.  “I wish we had more like you.”

Wee Pe’er blushed, his teeth momentarily ceased chattering, his heart swelled.  Appearances to the contrary, he felt warm all through.  The sergeant laid a fatherly hand upon his shoulder.

“Go you your ways intil the guard-room, boy,” he commanded, “and send oot Dunshie.  He’ll no hurt.  Get close in ahint the stove, or you’ll be for Cambridge!”

(The last phrase carries no academic significance.  It simply means that you are likely to become an inmate of the great Cambridge Hospital at Aldershot.)

Peter, feeling thoroughly disgraced, cast an appealing look at the officer.

“In you go!” said that martinet.

Peter silently obeyed.  It was the only time in his life that he ever felt mutinous.

A month later Brigade Training set in with customary severity.  The life of company officers became a burden.  They spent hours in thick woods with their followers, taking cover, ostensibly from the enemy, in reality from brigade-majors and staff officers.  A subaltern never tied his platoon in a knot but a general came trotting round the corner.  The wet weather had ceased, and a biting east wind reigned in its stead.

On one occasion an elaborate night operation was arranged.  Four battalions were to assemble at a given point five miles from camp, and then advance in column across country by the light of the stars to a position indicated on the map, where they were to deploy and dig themselves in!  It sounded simple enough in operation orders; but when you try to move four thousand troops—­even well-trained troops—­across three miles of broken country on a pitch-dark night, there is always a possibility that some one will get mislaid.  On this particular occasion a whole battalion lost itself without any delay or difficulty whatsoever.  The other three were compelled to wait for two hours and a half, stamping their feet and blowing on their fingers, while overheated staff officers scoured the country for the truants.  They were discovered at last waiting virtuously at the wrong rendezvous, three-quarters of a mile away.  The brazen-hatted strategist who drew up the operation orders had given the point of assembly for the brigade as:  ... the field S.W. of WELLINGTON WOOD and due E. of HANGMAN’S COPSE, immediately below the first O in GHOSTLY BOTTOM,—­but omitted to underline the O indicated.  The result was that three battalion commanders assembled at the O in “ghostly,” while the fourth, ignoring the adjective in favour of the noun, took up his station at the first O in “bottom.”

The operations had been somewhat optimistically timed to end at 11 P.M., but by the time that the four battalions had effected a most unloverly tryst, it was close on ten, and beginning to rain.  The consequence was that the men got home to bed, soaked to the skin, and asking the Powers Above rhetorical questions, at three o’clock in the morning.