The English soldier hides his feelings as though he were ashamed of them.  The sombre silence became almost oppressive in the autumnal twilight, and I sought to disperse it.

“I suppose you’re pretty comfortable here?” I said, for the camp seemed to leave nothing to be desired.

But this was to open the sluices of criticism.  The British soldier begins to “grouse” the moment he becomes comfortable—­and not before.  He will bear without repining everything but luxury.

“One and six a day we gets,” cried one of them, “and what’s this about this New Army getting four bob?”

“I think you’re mistaken, my son,” said the chaplain gently.

“Well, there’s chaps in this ’ere camp, Army cooks they calls themselves, speshully ’listed for the war, and they gets six bob.  And those shuvvers—­they’re like fighting cocks.”

“Well, there seems nothing to complain of in the matter of supplies,” I said.  They had been having a kind of high tea on tables laid across trestles on the lawn, and one of them, using his knife as a bricklayer uses his trowel, was luxuriously spreading a layer of apple and plum jam upon a stratum of hard-boiled egg, which reposed on a bed-rock of bread and butter, the whole representing a most interesting geological formation and producing a startling chromatic effect.

“Why, sir, if you read the papers you wud ’a thocht it was a braw pic-nic.” said the red-headed one.  “You wud think we were growin’ fat oot in the trenches.  Dae ah look like it?”

My companion, the grey-headed chaplain, took the Highlander affectionately by the second button of his tunic and gave it a pull.  “Not much space here, eh?  I think you’re pretty well fed, my son!”

A bugle-call rang out over the camp.  “Bed-time,” said a Guardsman, “time to go bye-bye.  Parade—­hype!  Dis-miss!  The orderly officer’ll be round soon.  Scoot, my sons.”

They scooted.

The silvery notes of the bugle died away over the woods.  Night was falling, and the sky faded slowly from mother-of-pearl to a leaden gray.  We were alone.  The chaplain gazed wistfully at the retreating figures, his face seemed suddenly shrunken, and I could see that he was very old.  He took my arm and leaned heavily upon it.  “I have been in the Army for the best part of my life,” he said simply, “and I had retired on a pension.  But I thank God,” he added devoutly, “that it has pleased Him to extend my days long enough to enable me to rejoin the Forces.  For I know the British soldier and—­to know him is to love him.  Do you understand?” he added, as he nodded in the direction the men had gone.

As I looked at him, there came into my mind the haunting lines of Tennyson’s “Ulysses.”

“Yes,” I said, “I understand.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[13] Pale.

[14] Confusing.

[15] Blaze.

[16] Empty.