‘I’m ready,’ I said.  ’But I want to do one errand on my own first.  I must see a fellow in my brigade who is in a shell-shock hospital in the Cotswolds.  Isham’s the name of the place.’

The two men exchanged glances.  ‘This looks like fate,’ said Bullivant.  ’By all means go to Isham.  The place where your work begins is only a couple of miles off.  I want you to spend next Thursday night as the guest of two maiden ladies called Wymondham at Fosse Manor.  You will go down there as a lone South African visiting a sick friend.  They are hospitable souls and entertain many angels unawares.’

‘And I get my orders there?’

‘You get your orders, and you are under bond to obey them.’  And Bullivant and Macgillivray smiled at each other.

I was thinking hard about that odd conversation as the small Ford car, which I had wired for to the inn, carried me away from the suburbs of the county town into a land of rolling hills and green water-meadows.  It was a gorgeous afternoon and the blossom of early June was on every tree.  But I had no eyes for landscape and the summer, being engaged in reprobating Bullivant and cursing my fantastic fate.  I detested my new part and looked forward to naked shame.  It was bad enough for anyone to have to pose as a pacifist, but for me, strong as a bull and as sunburnt as a gipsy and not looking my forty years, it was a black disgrace.  To go into Germany as an anti-British Afrikander was a stoutish adventure, but to lounge about at home talking rot was a very different-sized job.  My stomach rose at the thought of it, and I had pretty well decided to wire to Bullivant and cry off.  There are some things that no one has a right to ask of any white man.

When I got to Isham and found poor old Blaikie I didn’t feel happier.  He had been a friend of mine in Rhodesia, and after the German South-West affair was over had come home to a Fusilier battalion, which was in my brigade at Arras.  He had been buried by a big crump just before we got our second objective, and was dug out without a scratch on him, but as daft as a hatter.  I had heard he was mending, and had promised his family to look him up the first chance I got.  I found him sitting on a garden seat, staring steadily before him like a lookout at sea.  He knew me all right and cheered up for a second, but very soon he was back at his staring, and every word he uttered was like the careful speech of a drunken man.  A bird flew out of a bush, and I could see him holding himself tight to keep from screaming.  The best I could do was to put a hand on his shoulder and stroke him as one strokes a frightened horse.  The sight of the price my old friend had paid didn’t put me in love with pacificism.

We talked of brother officers and South Africa, for I wanted to keep his thoughts off the war, but he kept edging round to it.

‘How long will the damned thing last?’ he asked.

‘Oh, it’s practically over,’ I lied cheerfully.  ’No more fighting for you and precious little for me.  The Boche is done in all right . . .  What you’ve got to do, my lad, is to sleep fourteen hours in the twenty-four and spend half the rest catching trout.  We’ll have a shot at the grouse-bird together this autumn and we’ll get some of the old gang to join us.’