Meanwhile we are in a very difficult position, such as I believe few soldiers have ever been called upon to face. You will remember how, four months ago, we collected ourselves together in accordance with our long-standing engagement to protect these islands against the foreign trespasser, the condition of our contract being that our service should begin (as charity should) and end (as charity often does) at home. In the bad old days when I was at the Bar I should of course have known that contracts are apt to turn round on those who make them; but now I am only a plain soldier and I am unable to understand why I should be made to stay at home when I desire to go and make a nuisance of myself abroad. But the real trouble comes from this, that some six weeks ago I received written and explicit orders to the effect that I was to sail forthwith. Suppose this had happened to you and you had been given special leave of forty-eight hours to make all necessary preparations, would not you have gone where your more impressionable acquaintances and friends were gathered together in the greatest numbers, informing them of the position and doing, on the strength of it, a quiet but irretrievable swank? No ostentation, mark you, and nothing approaching a boast, but just a suspicion of a brave careless laugh, a voice just slightly choked with emotion and but a formal reluctance to accept the numerous and costly gifts proffered by relatives who at less emotional times would have grudged you a Christmas card? We did. We went home and were made a fuss of; we took our leave and nice things were said to us, tears welled, and hands, peculiarly firm or peculiarly tender as the case might be, held ours for rather longer than the customary period. With a brave "Pooh! Pooh! It doesn't matter in the least," we went off at last, off amid deafening cheers to the unknown future.... The following week-end we were home again as before, but, since the joy of a temporary reprieve may outweigh even the annoyance of an anticlimax, they were pleased to see us and gave us another farewell only slightly less emotional than the last. But on the third of this series of week-ends a note of insincerity crept into the "Goodbye, old man," and the hand-pressure was slightly curtailed.