As you stumble up the Gully at night the illumination of the signal-office gives a touch of the arclight and of city brilliance to the place. The operators, sitting there, as you peer in from the outer darkness, are a part of another world. Those not transmitting or under call sit reading sixpenny editions and smoking cigarettes. They are tapping out no orders from Headquarters. Neither in the words before them nor in the placid _tap_ of the instruments is there any hint of war. They're in London. But that sudden roar as of a locomotive is of no London street traffic; London streets do not roar in a _crescendo_. This is as of a rushing, mighty wind, rising to the scream of a tornado. Comes the blast of explosion which unsettles them in their seats. The walls of their house quake about them, and the shower of earth and _débris_ descends; the foul stink drives through the dust, and the well-ordered city room is hurried back, in the twinkling of an eye, into the midst of war in the troublous land of Turkey. A six-inch howitzer shell has exploded in the bank over against them--so close that the unuttered thought flies to the possibility of a nearer ultimate burst. The howitzer, searcher out of the protected sites in ravines, under looming hill-crests, is a searcher of hearts too--a disturber of the placid sense of security. The _débris_ is cleared and the fumes pass, and order returns. The operator goes back to his dot-and-dash monotone, and his neighbour resumes his novel and lights another cigarette. The quiet undertone of conversation revives. Money is the sinews of war: where, in the anthropomorphic figure, will you place these men of the Army Corps Signal Office? Analytical reader, you may place them at your leisure--if you can. They make vocal (or scriptural) the will of Headquarters. A general order they tap out to the utmost post on the flanks. The flanks flash into them the hourly report of progress. The watch in the trenches is realised, through them, by Headquarters. If the Turk is quiescent, it is the telegraphist here who knows it; if a move is made in the enemy lines--a Turkish mule convoy sighted from the outpost, an enemy bombardment set up--it is flashed through incontinently. These men, who see so little of war--apart from searching howitzer--may, if they choose, visualise the whole outlook along our line. They are to Army Headquarters what the sergeant is to the Captain of infantry: the one may scribble or bawl orders until weary; if the other is not there to distribute and enforce the given word, all will perhaps be in vain.