"But---" I began, and then fell silent. The more I thought of it the less I liked it. Put it how you like, for a girl to take as her husband a man who has actually killed the man she loved and was engaged to--German or no German--is a bit of a pill to swallow. * * * * * After mature consideration we decided to present the pill to her garbed in this form. On me--as a scribbler of sorts--descended the onus of putting it on paper. When I'd done it, and Dick had read it, he said I was a fool, and wanted to tear it up. Which is like a man.... Look you, my lady, it was a fair fight--it was war--it was an Englishman against a German; and the best man won. And surely to Heaven you can't blame poor old Dick? He didn't know; how could he have known, how... but what's the use? If your heart doesn't bring it right--neither my pen nor my logic is likely to. Which is like a woman. CHAPTER II PRIVATE MEYRICK--COMPANY IDIOT No one who has ever given the matter a moment's thought would deny, I suppose, that a regiment without discipline is like a ship without a rudder. True as that fact has always been, it is doubly so now, when men are exposed to mental and physical shocks such as have never before been thought of. The condition of a man's brain after he has sat in a trench and suffered an intensive bombardment for two or three hours can only be described by one word, and that is--numbed. The actual physical concussion, apart altogether from the mental terror, caused by the bursting of a succession of large shells in a man's vicinity, temporarily robs him of the use of his thinking faculties. He becomes half-stunned, dazed; his limbs twitch convulsively and involuntarily; he mutters foolishly--he becomes incoherent. Starting with fright he passes through that stage, passes beyond it into a condition bordering on coma; and when a man is in that condition he is not responsible for his actions. His brain has ceased to work....