“Yes, he was, rather. He destroyed two of the three guns, and then was overpowered—_that_ wouldn’t have taken long!—and made prisoner: pretty roughly handled, too. But before he could be sent to the rear, some of our chaps made a little night-attack on that bit of German trench, and in the excitement Goujon got away. So he trotted home—but on the way he stopped, and gathered up the remaining machine-gun. Staggered into his own lines with it. They’ve given him the Military Medal.” “Deserved it, too,” was the comment. “And he’s seventeen!” said some one. “He ought to get pretty high up before the war is over.” “I know a man who’s a major at nineteen,” Anstruther said, “Went out as a second lieutenant and was promoted for gallantry at Mons; got his captaincy and was wounded at the Aisne; recovered, and at Neuve Chapelle was the sole officer left, except two very junior subalterns, in all his battalion. He handled it in action, brought them out brilliantly—awful corner it was, too,—and was in command for a fortnight after, before they could find a senior man; there weren’t any to spare. He was gazetted major last week.” “Lucky dog!” said Blake. “Well, I suppose he is. They say he’s a genius at soldiering, anyhow; and, of course, he got his chance. There must be hundreds of men who would do as well if they ever got it; only opportunity doesn’t come their way.” “They say this will be a war for young men,” Garrett said. “We’re going back to old days; I believe Wellington and Napoleon were colonels at twenty. And that’s more than you will be, young Meadows, if you don’t mend your ways.” “I never expected to be,” said Wally, thus attacked. “But why won’t I, anyhow, apart from obvious reasons?” “Because you’ll be a neat little corpse,” said Garrett. “What’s this game of yours I hear about?—crawling round on No-Man’s Land at night, and collecting little souvenirs? The souvenir you’ll certainly collect will come from a machine-gun.” Wally blushed. “Well, there are such a jolly lot of things there,” he defended himself. “Boche helmets—I’ve got three beauties—and belts, and buckles, and things. People at home like ’em.” “Presumably people at home like you,” Anstruther said. “But they certainly won’t have you to like if you do it, and it’s possible their affection might even wane for a German helmet that had cost you your scalp. _Verboten_, Meadows; that’s good German, at any rate. Understand?”