"No, sir. . . . Of course I cannot protest . . . Though it's probably a mistake of some clerk. . . . I could not stand a week in the line. . . ." The profound misery of brooding apprehension in the line was less on his mind than, precisely, the appalling labour of the lower limbs when you live in mud to the neck. . . . Besides, whilst he had been in hospital, practically the whole of his equipment had disappeared from his kitbag--including Sylvia's two pair of sheets!--and he had no money with which to get more. He had not even any trench-boots. Fantastic financial troubles settled on his mind. The colonel said to the adjutant at the other purple baize-covered table: "Show Captain Tietjens those marching orders of his. . . . They're from Whitehall, aren't they? . . . You never know where these things come from nowadays. I call them the arrow that flieth by night!" The adjutant, a diminutive, a positively miniature gentleman with Coldstream badges up and a dreadfully worried brow, drifted a quarto sheet of paper out of a pile, across his tablecloth towards Tietjens. His tiny hands seemed about to fall off at the wrists; his temples shuddered with neuralgia. He said: "For God's sake do protest to Garrison if you feel you can. . . . We _can't_ have more work shoved on us. . . . Major Lawrence and Major Halkett left the whole of the work of your unit to us. . . ." The sumptuous paper, with the royal arms embossed at the top, informed Tietjens that he would report to his VIth battalion on the Wednesday of next week in preparation for taking up the duties of divisional transport officer to the XIXth division. The order came from room G 14 R, at the War Office. He asked what the deuce G 14 R was, of the adjutant, who in an access of neuralgic agony, shook his head miserably, between his two hands, his elbows on the tablecloth.