“... So good to be back home,” Lollie went on ... “good to find you here——” The Major “tch-tch-ed” softly between his teeth and stooped to pull his boots off, and the voice went on, evenly again: “That’s the best bit of coming home, all that really makes it home—just being with you again—dearest.” The Major stood erect abruptly. “... Some day we’ll have our own little home ...” and this time at the end of the sentence, clear and distinct, came a girl’s name ... “Maisie.” With sudden haste the Major jerked off his remaining boot, blew out the light, and tumbled into bed. He caught a last fragment, something about “another kiss, dear,” before he could pull the blankets up and muffle them tight about his ears to shut out what he had neither right nor wish to hear. After that he lay thinking long and staring into the darkness. “So—that’s it. Talked brave enough, too. I was actually believing he meant it, and cursing the old war again, and thinking what a sad pity a fine youngster like that should come to feel a foreign country home. Sad pity, but”—his mind jumped ahead a fortnight to the next Push-to-Be—“I don’t know that it’s not more of a pity as it is, for her, and—him.” XIII BRING UP THE GUNS WHEN Jack Duncan and Hugh Morrison suddenly had it brought home to them that they ought to join the New Armies, they lost little time in doing so. Since they were chums of long standing in a City office, it went without saying that they decided to join and “go through it” together, but it was much more open to argument what branch of the Service or regiment they should join. They discussed the question in all its bearings, but being as ignorant of the Army and its ways as the average young Englishman was in the early days of the war, they had little evidence except varied and contradictory hearsay to act upon. Both being about twenty-five they were old enough and business-like enough to consider the matter in a business-like way, and yet both were young enough to be influenced by the flavour of romance they found in a picture they came across at the time. It was entitled “Bring up the Guns,” and it showed a horsed battery in the wild whirl of advancing into action, the horses straining and stretching in front of the bounding guns, the drivers crouched forward or sitting up plying whip and spur, the officers galloping and waving the men on, dust swirling from leaping hoofs and wheels, whip-thongs streaming, heads tossing, reins flying loose, altogether a blood-stirring picture of energy and action, speed and power. “I’ve always had a notion,” said Duncan reflectively, “that I’d like to have a good whack at riding. One doesn’t get much chance of it in city life, and this looks like a good chance.” “And I’ve heard it said,” agreed Morrison, “that a fellow with any education stands about the best chance in artillery work. We might as well plump for something where we can use the bit of brains we’ve got.”