"It was the same with practically every one," said Wagstaffe. "If any man asserts that he really enjoys modern warfare, after, say, six months of it, he is a liar. In the South African show I can honestly say I was perfectly happy. We were fighting in open country, against an adversary who was a gentleman; and although there was plenty of risk, the chances were that one came through all right. At any rate, there was no poison gas, and one did not see a whole platoon blown to pieces, or buried alive, by a single shell. If Brother Boer took you prisoner, he did not stick you in the stomach with a saw-edged bayonet. At the worst he pinched your trousers. But Brother Boche is a different proposition. Since he butted in, war has descended in the social scale. And modern scientific developments have turned a sporting chance of being scuppered into a mathematical certainty. And yet--and yet--old Mucklewame is right. One _hates_ to be out of it--especially at the finish. When the regiment comes stumping through London on its way back to Euston--next year, or whenever it's going to be--with their ragged pipers leading the way, you would like to be at the head of 'A' Company, Bobby, and I would give something to be exercising my old function of whipper-in. Eh, boy?" "Never mind," said practical Bobby. "Perhaps we shall be on somebody's glittering Staff. What I hate to feel at present is that the other fellows, out there, have got to go on sticking it, while we--" "And by God," exclaimed Wagstaffe, "what stickers they are--and were! Did you ever see anything so splendid, Bobby, as those six-months-old soldiers of ours--in the early days, I mean, when we held our trenches, week by week, under continuous bombardment, and our gunners behind could only help us with four or five rounds a day?" "I never did," said Bobby, truthfully.