“Ah!” said the Mons hero. “We didn’t ‘ave no blarsted gramophones in South Africa. This is a different kind of war. More comfort about it, if you’re not in the trenches.” Wickham Brand took me through the courtyard and mentioned that the colonel had come up from St. Omer. “Now we’re sure to beat the Boche,” he said. “Listen!” From a room to the left of the courtyard came the sound of a flute playing one of Bach’s minuets, very sweetly, with an old-fashioned grace. “A wonderful army of ours!” said Brand. “I can’t imagine a German colonel of the Staff playing seventeenth century music on a bit of ivory while the enemy is fighting like a tiger at bay.” “Perhaps that’s our strength,” I answered. “Our amateurs refuse to take the war too seriously. I know a young gunner major who travels a banjo in his limber, and at Cambrai I saw fellows playing chuck-penny within ten yards of their pals’ dead bodies--a pile of them.” The colonel saw us through his window and waved his flute at us. When I went into the room, after a salute at the doorway, I saw that he had already littered it with artistic untidiness--sheets of torn music, water-colour sketches, books of poetry, and an array of splendid shining boots, of which a pair stood on the mahogany sideboard. “A beautiful little passage this,” said Colonel Lavington, smiling at me over the flute, which he put to his lips again. He played a bar or two of old-world melody, and said, “Isn’t that perfect? Can’t you see the little ladies in their ^puffed brocades and high-heeled shoes!” He had his faun-like look, his clean-shaven face with long nose and thin, humorous mouth, lighted up by his dark smiling eyes. “Not a bad headquarters,” he said, putting down the flute again. “If we can only stay here a little while, instead of having to jog on again. There’s an excellent piano in the dining-room, German, thank goodness--and Charles Fortune and I can really get down to some serious music.” “How’s the war?” I asked. “War?” he said absent-mindedly. “Oh, yes, the war! That’s going on all right. They’d be out of Tournai in a few days. Perhaps out of Maubeuge and Mons. Oh, the game’s up! Very soon the intellectuals will be looking round for a living in dear old London. My goodness, some of us will find peace a difficult job! I can see Boredom approaching with its colossal shadow.... After all, it has been a great game, on the whole.” I laughed, but something stuck in my throat. Colonel Lavington played the flute, but he knew his job, and was in touch with General Headquarters and all its secret information. It was obvious that he believed the war was going to end--soon. Soon, O Lord, after all the years of massacre. I blurted out a straight question. “Do you think there’s a real chance of peace?” The colonel was reading a piece of music, humming it with a la, la, la. “Another month and our job’s done,” he said. “Have you heard that bit of Gluck? It’s delicious.”