Somebody was singing “John Peel”: “D’ye ken John Peel with his coat so gay. D’ye ken John Peel at the break of day, D’ye ken John Peel when he’s far, far away. With, his horn, and his hounds in. the morning?” Cyril Clatworthy was on his feet, joining in the chorus with a loud joyous voice. “We’ll follow John Peel through fair and through foul. If we want a good hunt in the morning!’’ “Bravo! Bravo!” He laughed as he sat down. “I used to sing that when I was captain of the school,” he said. “A long time ago, eh? How many centuries?... I was as clean a fellow as you’d meet in those days. Keen as mustard on cricket. Some bat, too! That was before the dirty war, and the stinking trenches, and fever, and lice, and dead bodies, and all that. But I was telling you about Yvonne, wasn’t I?” “Marguérite,” I reminded him. “No. Yvonne. I met her at Cassel. A brown-eyed thing. Demure. You know the type?... One of the worst little sluts I ever met. Oh, a wicked little witch... Well, I paid for that affair. That policeman was wrong.” “What policeman?” I asked. “The traffic man at Vlamertinghe. ‘It’s the same way to hell,’ he said, meaning Hooge. It was the other way, really. All the same, I’ve had some good hours. And now it’s Armistice night.... Those fellows are getting rather blue, aren’t they? It’s the blinking cavalry who used to get in the way of the infantry, blocking up the roads with their ridiculous horses and their preposterous, lances. Look here, old man, there’s one thing I want to know. Tell me, as a wise owl.” “What is that?” I asked, laughing at his deference to my wisdom. “How are we going to get clean enough for peace?” “Clean enough?” I could not follow the drift of his question, and he tried to explain himself. “Oh, I don’t mean the soap and water business. But morally, spiritually, intellectually, and all that? Some of us will want a lot of scrubbing before we sit down in our nice little Christian families, somewhere at Wimbledon or Ealing. Somehow I funk peace. It means getting back again to where one started, and I don’t see how it’s possible.... Good Lord, what tripe I’ve been talking!” He pulled the bow of one of the “Waacs” and undid her apron. “_Encore une bouteille de champagne, mademoiselle!_” he said in his best French, and started singing “La Marseillaise.” Some of the officers were dancing the fox trot and the bunny hug. Brand rose with a smile and a sigh. “Armistice night!” he said. “Thank God there’s a crowd of fellows left to do the dancing.... I can’t help thinking of the others.” He touched a glass with his lips to a silent toast, and I saw that he drank to ghosts. Then he put the glass down and laid his hand on Clatworthy’s shoulder. “Care for a stroll?” he said. “This room is too fuggy.” “Not I, old lad,” said the boy. “This is Armistice night--and the end of the adventure. See it through!”