“So, you see, the bettin’ was even on my drawin’ a V. C. or getting Number Umpty rest-camp or--a firing party before breakfast. But Gord saved me. (I made friends with Him the last two years of the war. The others went off too quick.) They wanted a bombin’-instructor for the training-battalion at home, an’ He put it into their silly hearts to indent for me. It took ’em five minutes to make me understand I was saved. Then I vomited, an’ then I cried. _You_ know!” The fat face of Bevin had changed and grown drawn, even as he spoke; and his hands tugged as though to tighten an imaginary belt. “I was never keen on bombin’ myself,” said Pole. “But bombin’-instruction’s murder!” “I don’t deny it’s a shade risky, specially when they take the pin out an’ start shakin’ it, same as the Chinks used to do in the woods at Beauty, when they were cuttin’ ’em down. But you live like a home defence Brigadier, besides week-end leaf. As a matter o’ fact, I married Bert’s sister soon’s I could after I got the billet, an’ I used to lie in our bed thinkin’ of the old crowd on the Somme an’--feelin’ what a swine I was. Of course, I earned two V. C.’s a week behind the traverse in the exercise of my ord’nary duties, but that isn’t the same thing. An’ yet I’d only joined up because--because I couldn’t dam’ well help it.” “An’ what about your Queenslander?” the Australian asked. “_Too de sweet! Pronto!_ We got a letter in May from a Brighton hospital matron, sayin’ that one of the name of Hickmer was anxious for news o’ me, previous to proceedin’ to Roehampton for initiation into his new leg. Of course, we applied for him by return. Bert had written about him to his sister--my missus--every time he wrote at all; an’ any pal o’ Bert’s--well, _you_ know what the ladies are like. I warned her about his peculiarities. She wouldn’t believe till she saw him. He was just the same. You’d ha’ thought he’d show up in England like a fresh stiff on snow--but you never noticed him. You never heard him; and if he didn’t want to be seen he wasn’t there. He just joined up with his background. I knew he could do that with men; but how in Hell, seein’ how curious women are, he could camouflage with the ladies--my wife an’ my mother to wit--beats _me_! He’d feed the chickens for us; he’d stand on his one leg--it was off above the knee--and saw wood for us. He’d run--I mean he’d hop--errands for Mrs. B. or mother; our dog worshipped him from the start, though I never saw him throw a word to him; and--_yet_ he didn’t take any place anywhere. You’ve seen a rabbit--you’ve seen a pheasant--hidin’ in a ditch? ’Put your hand on it sometimes before it moved, haven’t you? Well, that was Hickmot--with two women in the house crazy to find out--find out--anything about him that made him human. _You_ know what women are! He stayed with us a fortnight. He left us on a Sat’day to go to Roehampton to try his leg. On Friday he came over to the bombin’ ground--not sayin’ anything,