"Sit down," said the First Lieutenant, and there was a note in his voice the Doctor obeyed, because it was something he was still young enough to acknowledge. "Listen," said the Lieutenant, in hard, dry tones. "You've got to share this--you've all got to share this." Papers rustled and every eye was on the speaker. "It's--it's too good to keep to oneself. My brother"--he made a little gesture with the letter in his hand--"my brother was wounded--broken thigh--twenty miles behind the line in a base hospital--the Huns bombed it in broad daylight, with the Red Cross flying on every flagstaff and painted on every roof--bombed it in cold blood, and killed thirty-four wounded officers and men and two V.A.D.'s. They killed my brother, and they killed----" He thrust the letter into the limp hands of the Surgeon Probationer. "You gave me something to read just now. Read that! They killed the whitest woman--she was trying to save him--with the Red Cross on her breast--and his thigh broken. Goodwill among men! Love your enemies! Love your----" The Gunner came across the mess with his heavy tread, his stolid face full of concern. "No offence, I'm sure, sir," he said, glancing at the Surgeon. "Mr. Dantham didn't know--how _could_ he? Nor yet his aunt----" The tragedy of one is the tragedy of all in a community as small and as intimate as a Destroyer Wardroom; but the innate sense of justice in the Briton's heart found expression in the Gunner's inarticulate sympathy. He held no brief for the Hun, but he was the champion of the shocked Surgeon and Aunt Agatha for all her pacifist leanings. The Surgeon sat with the unread letter in his hands staring up at the First Lieutenant. "Oh!" he said. "Oh, the swine." A growl of confirmation ran round the Mess, but no one addressed the First Lieutenant direct. "Yes," he said. "Bestial swine. Brutal, bestial swine. If he'd been killed by the shell that broke his leg I wouldn't have minded. That would have been fair fight; and she--if it had been septic poisoning or disease; those are the risks all nurses run: the enemies they face and fight all day and night. But this!" He spoke in low, measured tones. "If I ever get to grips with a Hun after this----" The mask of icy self-control slipped for a moment from his face. His features worked and his hands made a movement somehow suggestive and brutal. "Best have a drink," said the Gunner, soothingly, and as he spoke there was a trampling of men's feet overhead, muffled by the snow on the thin plating. The Quartermaster's pipe rippled and shrilled, to be succeeded by a hoarse sing-song bellow. "Boot and saddle" sounded in a cavalry barracks never stirred the stables as that rush of unseen feet overhead, breaking the peace of a Christmas afternoon in harbour, galvanised the Wardroom into sudden activity.