And so once again Meyrick stood in front of his company officer, and was encouraged to speak of his difficulties. To an amazing degree he had remembered the discourse he had listened to many months previously; to do something for the regiment was what he desired more than anything--to do something big, really big. He floundered and stopped; he could find no words.... "But don't you understand that it's just as important to do the little things? If you can't do them, you'll never do the big ones." "Yes, sir--I sees that; I do try, sir, and then I gets thinking, and some'ow--oh! I dunno--but everything goes out of my head like. I wants the regiment to be proud of me--and then they calls me the Company Idiot." There was something in the man's face that touched Seymour. "But how can the regiment be proud of you, my lad," he asked gently, "if you're always late on parade, and forgetting to do what you're told? If I wasn't certain in my own mind that it wasn't slackness and disobedience on your part, I should ask the Colonel to send you back to England as useless." An appealing look came into the man's eyes. "Oh! don't do that, sir. I will try 'ard--straight I will." "Yes, but as I told you once before, there comes a time when one must judge by results. Now, Meyrick, you must understand this finally. Unless you do improve, I shall do what I said. I shall tell the Colonel that you're not fitted to be a soldier, and I shall get him to send you away. I can't go on much longer; you're more trouble than you're worth. We're going up to the trenches again to-night, and I shall watch you. That will do; you may go." And so it came about that the Company Idiot entered on what was destined to prove the big scene in his uneventful life under the eyes of a critical audience. To the Sergeant-Major, who was a gross materialist, failure was a foregone conclusion; to the company officer, who went a little nearer to the heart of things, the issue was doubtful. Possibly his threat would succeed; possibly he'd struck the right note. And the peculiar thing is that both proved right according to their own lights.... * * * * * This particular visit to the trenches was destined to be of a very different nature to former ones. On previous occasions peace had reigned; nothing untoward had occurred to mar the quiet restful existence which trench life so often affords to its devotees. But this time.... It started about six o'clock in the morning on the second day of their arrival--a really pleasant little intensive bombardment. A succession of shells came streaming in, shattering every yard of the front line with tearing explosions. Then the Huns turned on the gas and attacked behind it. A few reached the trenches--the majority did not; and the ground outside was covered with grey-green figures, some of which were writhing and twitching and some of which were still. The attack had failed....