The Americans who think of Britain as a small island forget the distance from Land’s End to John o’ Groat’s, which represents coast line to be guarded; and we may find a lesson, too, we who must make our real defence by sea, of tireless vigils which may be our own if the old Armageddon beast ever comes threatening the far-longer coast line that we have to defend. For you may never know what war is till war comes. Not even the Germans knew, though they had practised with a lifelike dummy behind the curtains for forty years. At intervals, just as in the military zone in France, sentries stopped us and took the number of our car; but this time sentries, who were guarding a navy’s rather than an army’s secrets. With darkness we passed the light of an occasional inn, while cottage lights made a scattered sprinkling among the dim masses of the hills. One wondered where all the kilted Highland soldiers whom he had seen at the front came from, without, I trust, disclosing any military secret that the canny Highlanders enlist Lowlanders in kilty regiments. The Frenchmen of our party--M. Stephen Pichon, former Foreign Minister, M. Réné Bazin, of the Academie Française, M. Joseph Reinach, of the _Figaro_, M. Pierre Mille, of _Le Temps_, and M. Henri Ponsot-- who had never been in Scotland before, were on the lookout for a civilian Scot in kilts and were grievously disappointed not to find a single one. That night ride convinced me that however many Germans might be moving about in England under the guise of cockney or of Lancashire dialects in quest of information, none has any chance in Scotland. He could never get the burr, I am sure, unless born in Scotland; and if he were, once he had it the triumph ought to make him a Scotchman at heart. The officer of the Royal Navy, who was in the car with me, confessed to less faith in his symbol of authority than in the generations’-bred burr of our chauffeur to carry conviction of our genuineness; so arguments were left to him and successfully, including two or three with Scotch cattle, which seemed to be co-operating with the sentries to block the road. After an hour’s run inland and the car rose over a ridge and descended on a sharp grade, in the distance under the moonlight we saw the floor of the sea again, melting into opaqueness, with curving fringes of foam along the irregular shore cut by the indentations of the firths. Now the sentries were more frequent and more particular. Our single light gave dim form to the figures of sailors, soldiers, and boy scouts on patrol. “They’ve done remarkably well, these boys!” said the officer. “Our fears that, boylike, they would see all kinds of things which didn’t exist were quite needless. The work has taught them a sense of responsibility which will remain with them after the war, when their experience will be a precious memory. They realise that it isn’t play, but a serious business, and act accordingly.”