We watched the three cross the road and disappear into the shadow of the Mess verandah.  There was a noise.  Then telephone bells rang, a sergeant and a Mess waiter charged out, and the noise grew, till at last the Mess was a little noisy.

We came back, ten minutes later, with Colonel Dalziell, who had been taking his sorrows to bed with him.  The ante-room was quite full and visitors were still arriving, but it was possible to hear oneself speak occasionally.  Trivett and Eames, in sack and sash, sat side by side on a table, their hats at a ravishing angle, coquettishly twiddling their tied feet.  In the intervals of singing ‘Put Me Among the Girls,’ they sipped whisky-and-soda held to their lips by, I regret to say, a Major.  Public opinion seemed to be against allowing them to change their costume till they should have danced in it.  Wontner, lying more or less gracefully at the level of the chandelier in the arms of six subalterns, was lecturing on tactics and imploring to be let down, which he was with a run when they realised that the Colonel was there.  Then he picked himself up from the sofa and said:  ’I want to apologise, sir, to you and the Mess for having been such an ass ever since I joined!’

This was when the noise began.

Seeing the night promised to be wet, Stalky and I went home again in The Infant’s car.  It was some time since we had tasted the hot air that lies between the cornice and the ceiling of crowded rooms.

After half an hour’s silence, Stalky said to me:  ’I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but I believe I’ve been weepin’.  Would you put that down to Burgundy or senile decay?’

THE CHILDREN

These were our children who died for our lands:  they
were dear in our sight. 
We have only the memory left of their home-treasured
sayings and laughter. 
The price of our loss shall be paid to our hands, not
another’s hereafter. 
Neither the Alien nor Priest shall decide on it.  That is our right.
But who shall return us the children?

At the hour the Barbarian chose to disclose his pretences,
And raged against Man, they engaged, on the breasts
that they bared for us,
The first felon-stroke of the sword he had long-time
prepared for us—­
Their bodies were all our defence while we wrought our defences.

They bought us anew with their blood, forbearing to blame us,
Those hours which we had not made good when the Judgment
o’ercame us. 
They believed us and perished for it.  Our statecraft, our learning.

Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning
Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour. 
Not since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed upon her.

     Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them. 
       The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemption: 
       Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our redemption,
     Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marvelling, closed
          on them.