Will the scales have dropped from the eyes of the men who have really been through it? Shall we ever get back to the same old way? Heaven knows--but let us hope not. Anyway, it is all mere idle conjecture--and a digression to boot. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote 1: For the benefit of the uninitiated, let me explain that the process of registering consists of finding the exact range to a certain object from a particular gun or battery. To find this range it is necessary to obtain what is known as a bracket: _i.e._ one burst beyond the object, and one burst short. The range is then known to lie between these two: and by a little adjustment the exact distance can be found.] CHAPTER VI BLACK, WHITE, AND--GREY Four weeks after his board Jim Denver once again found himself in France. Having reported his arrival, he sat down to await orders. Boulogne is not a wildly exhilarating place; though there is always the hotel where one may consume cocktails and potato chips, and hear strange truths about the war from people of great knowledge and understanding. Moreover--though this is by the way--in Boulogne you get the first sniff of that atmosphere which England lacks; that subtle, indefinable something which war _in_ a country produces in the spirit of its people.... Gone is the stout lady of doubtful charm engaged in mastering the fox-trot, what time a band wails dismally in an alcove; gone is the wild-eyed flapper who bumps madly up and down the roads on the carrier of a motor-cycle. It has an atmosphere of its own this fair land of France to-day. It is laughing through its tears, and the laughter has an ugly sound--for the Huns. They will hear that laughter soon, and the sound will give them to think fearfully. But at the moment when Jim landed it was all very boring. The R.T.O. at Boulogne was bored; the A.S.C. officers at railhead were bored; the quartermaster guarding the regimental penates in a field west of Ypres was bored. "Cheer up, old son," Jim remarked, slapping the last-named worthy heavily on the back. "You look peevish." "Confound you," he gasped, when he'd recovered from choking. "This is my last bottle of whisky." "Where's the battalion?" laughed Denver. "Where d'you think? In a Turkish bath surrounded by beauteous houris?" the quartermaster snorted. "Still in the same damn mud-hole near Hooge." "Good! I'll trot along up shortly. You know, I'm beginning to be glad I came back. I didn't want to particularly, at first: I was enjoying myself at home--but I felt I ought to, and now--'pon my soul---- How are you, Jones?" A passing sergeant stopped and saluted. "Grand, sir. How's yourself? The boys will be glad you've come back." Denver stood chatting with him for a few moments and then rejoined the pessimistic quartermaster.