“I’m very sorry you’re both leaving me,” said the Colonel. “Very sorry indeed.” “We’re sorry to be going, sir,” from Bromley. “I’m sorry we’re leaving, sir,” from Peter. They shook hands with the diffident kindly man, saluted; clanked out, booted and spurred—the Gunner grenades already on their lapels; ran into Locksley-Jones. “Hallo, you chaps,” he stuttered. “Just off. What?” “Yes,” said Bromley grimly. “We’re going to a show where they’ve got a _soldier_ for their Adjutant. It will be quite a change. . . .” But when—(having said good-bye to Mr. Smith, the Regimental Sergeant Major, to Gladeney and Sergeant Atkins and Corporal Pearson, to Peabody and Arkwright and Mackenzie, Mosely and Simcox and half a hundred others who came crowding round the bar at “the Feathers,” to their two servants who stood watching the train as it slid out of Worthing Station towards Brighton)—the two friends at last settled themselves in the corner of a first-class carriage, they both grew very silent—thinking how others would lead into action those hard-drinking, hard-swearing Cockneys who sang, as they marched: _“It’s a long vai, ter get ter Berlin,_ _Ter pai back all we owe.”_ PART ELEVEN MEN AND HORSES § 1 The Southdown Divisional Artillery, at the time Peter and Bromley were transferred, owned its full complement of men, its khaki, some officers, a handful of horses, a few old French 90-millimetre guns dating from 1868 (“guns” by courtesy, as they had neither breechblocks, firing nor sighting apparatuses), a few ammunition caissons to match, and a scratch collection of harness, begged, borrowed or stolen according to possibilities. Weasel Stark’s command had been billeted in Brighton since its formation: the horses at various livery-stables; the gunners and drivers—Yorkshiremen for the most part—in squalid terraces at the back of the town; the senior officers at Prince’s or the Metropole; the juniors during the intervals between “Cook’s tours” to the Front, gunnery-courses and telephone courses—at a small private-hotel which they monopolized. Stark’s personality pervaded the Fourth Brigade. He had his own theories on training, on gunnery, on discipline: theories essentially simple, disregarding the means for the end. A believer in decentralization, he rarely interfered with subordinates: when he did so, his strictures—which he couched in the most illuminating profanity—were usually heeded. His lectures invariably began, “Now if you young subalterns will only burn those sanguinary books and use a little commonsense;” he rode as hard as he drank; protected his juniors from his superiors; never forgot a face and would forgive anything in the world except lack of keenness. At the moment, Stark was—to use his own expression—letting ’em have their heads. § 2