"Good God!" shouted the colonel. "This is disgraceful. More incompetence! If I've written one letter complaining of this kind of thing I've written a dozen. Men come here without papers, without kit, without orders, and expect us to look after 'em. The Army in France is one mass of incompetent fools, in my opinion. It's a scandal, Sandeman." The adjutant said nothing. The C.O. hardly seemed to expect him to, for he swept on without a pause. "If I'd my way, I'd scrap the whole lot of 'em, and have a few men who know their jobs put in instead. No papers, no nothing. Disgraceful! Where's your kit, man?" Alf, finding that this question also was addressed to him, and having no reply ready, merely gaped. "Speak up!" bawled the Colonel. "L--l--lost it, sir." The C.O. dashed his pen violently on to his desk, where it stuck quivering on its point, turned round in his chair and silently eyed his adjutant for ten palpitating seconds. "D'ye hear that, Sandeman? He's lost it. Good God! What are we coming to?... The Government has fitted him out with a complete set of kit and he's lost it ... and how," he vociferated, turning round once more with such unexpected speed that Alf once more gave back a pace. "How d'you mean to tell me you lost it, eh?" But Alf's inventive powers were exhausted, and Bill judged it time, at whatever risk to life and limb, to take a speaking part in the little drama. "Overboard, sir, in the Channel," he said, without removing his eye from the wall. "Off of a ship," he added as an afterthought, in order that there should be no misunderstanding possible. Colonel Watts appeared to regard this as the last straw. For a moment he seemed unable to articulate at all, and the hue of his countenance deepened through successive shades till it finally arrived at a congested purple. He hammered on his desk with his fist. "I will not have my valuable time wasted in this way!" he roared. "Bring these men before me to-morrow, sergeant-major, and if I can't get a coherent account of them from some one, there'll be trouble. Incompetent fools!" He puffed passionately out of the orderly-room and slammed the door, leaving it uncertain whether his last remark was addressed only to Alf and Bill, or whether it was not rather intended to include the adjutant, the R.S.M., the sergeant of the guard and the impassive privates acting as prisoners' escort. He was to be heard faintly outside in unkind criticism of the sentry's method of presenting arms. Then there was silence, and a general feeling as though the sun had come out. "Prisoners and escort," began the R.S.M. "Right-TURN! Quick...." "Wait, sergeant-major," said Captain Sandeman quietly. "I want to ask these men a question or two. Send the escort off." Bill's heart sank. Captain Sandeman had lost the air of passive indifference which he wore as protective armor in the presence of Colonel Watts. He looked horribly intelligent and wide-awake.