The cook and an orderly man remained, and we heard from them the details of the mystery. Early that morning they had formed up, and gone off under Lieutenant S--- along the mule track overlooking the Gulf of Saros. That was all. There was still hope, of course... but there wasn't a sign of them to be seen. The machine-gun section had seen them pass right along. Some officers had warned them not to go up, but they went and they never came back. There were rumours that one of the N.C.O.'s of the party, a sergeant, had been seen lying on some rocks. “Just riddled with bullets--riddled!” The hours dragged on. I begged of the adjutant to let me go off along the ridge on my own to see if I could find any trace. “It's too dangerous,” he said. “If I thought there was half a chance I'd go with you, but we don't want to lose any more.” Those ten or twelve men went out of our lives completely. Days passed. There was no news. It was queer. It was queer when I called the roll next day-- “Briggs!”--“Sar'nt!” “Boots!”--“Sarn't!” “Cudworth!”--“Here, Sar'nt!” “Dean!”--“Sar'nt!” “Desmond!”--“Sar'nt!” “D---.” I couldn't remember not to call his name out. It seemed queer that he was missing. It seemed quite hopeless now. Three or four days dragged on. Everything continued as usual. We went up past the place where we had left them, and there was no news, no sign. They just vanished. No one saw them again, and except for the “riddled” rumour of the poor old sergeant the whole thing was a blank. We supposed that the young officer, coming fresh to the place, did not know where the British lines ended and the Turks' began, and he marched his squads into that bit of No Man's Land beyond the machine-gun near “Jefferson's Post,” and was either shot or taken prisoner. It made the men heavy and sad-minded. “Poor old Mellor--'e warn't a bad sort, was he!” “Ah!--an' Bell, Sergeant Bell... riddled they say... some one seen 'm--artillery or some one!” It hung over them like a cloud. The men talked of nothing else. “Somebody's blundered,” said one. “It's a pity any'ow.” “It's a disgrace to the ambulance--losin' men like that.” And, also, it made the men nervous and unreliable. It was a shock. CHAPTER XVII. “OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND!” It may be that I have never grown up properly. I'm a very poor hand at pretending I'm a “grown man.” Impressions of small queer things still stamp themselves with a clear kodak-click on my mind--an ivory-white mule's skull lying in the sand with green beetles running through the eye-holes... anything--trivial, childlike details. I remember reading an article in a magazine which stated that under fire, and more especially in a charge, a man moves in a whirl of excitement which blots out all the small realities around him, all the “local colour.” He remembers nothing but a wild, mad rush, or the tense intensity of the danger he is in.