"But _you_ understand," he recommenced. "And, if you'll come to your Confession, I'll at least have done something for somebody before this scrap. Rupert, you can thank Heaven you don't feel as I do--that you've nothing positive to do to-morrow--that you're not pulling your weight. I shall just skulk about, like a dog worrying the heels of an attack." "Rot!" said Doe. "You've done wonders for the men." "No, I haven't, except for those who come to their Mass and Confession. I've held no services a layman couldn't hold, and done nothing for the sick a hospital orderly couldn't do. And I want to be their priest." "Well, we'll both come to-night." Monty ceased frowning at the sea, and smilingly turned towards us. "You may think," he said, "that I've been of some help to you; but you can never know of what help you two have been to me." "Oh, rot!" said Doe, tossing a pencil into the air. Sec.5 It was about ten o'clock when I came away from Monty's home in the Eski Line, where I had made my Confession. I retain an impression of myself, as I walked homeward through the darkness, moving along the summits above Y Ravine. I was listening to the nervous night-firing of the Turk, who was apprehensive of something in the morning, and hearing in my mind Monty's last words: "Forget those things which are behind, and press towards the mark of your high calling." Walking along the Peninsula at night being always a gloomy matter, I was glad to arrive at the dug-out, where Doe was already under his blankets. I lay down and spent a long time battling with my mind to prevent it keeping me awake by too active thinking. For, if only I could drop off into unconsciousness, I had the chance of sleeping till an hour before the dawn. Sec.6 There is something depressing in being called while it is still dark, and being obliged to dress by artificial light. As I laced my boots by the flame of the candle in the dusk before the dawn, I felt a sensation I used to experience at school, when they lit the class-room gas in the early twilight of a winter afternoon--a sensation of the sadness and futility of all things. I awoke Doe, and could tell, as he sat up, rubbing his eyes and yawning, that returning memory was filling his mind with speculation as to what unthinkable things the morning might hold in its womb. With the feigned gaiety of the day before he flung off his blankets, and said: "Well, Roop, it's 'over the top and the best of luck' for us this morning." "Strange how quiet everything is," I replied. "The bombardment ought to have started before this."