One morning in November I sat by the fire in my den at Sloane Square. I had resumed the tenancy of the rooms, and Mrs. Mulvaney looked upon me as being even less mature than before, warning me about goloshes when it was wet, and umbrellas when it wasn't, but appeared likely to be. How long I sat there I do not know, but memory began to weave its spell, driving my surroundings into a dim obscurity and bringing back incidents of the past with vivid clarity. I gripped my head with both hands, and, for the hundredth time, sought the truth that lay buried in the holocaust of the nations.... My wound hurt again, and a dizziness crept over me like a fog that rises from the sea and enshrouds the land. Futile.... Futile.... Had some one spoken? The words sounded distinctly.... I could have sworn I heard them. Was the whole war a dream, or was it real? Once more I was in Sloane Square; there was my desk with its litter of papers, my pipe-rack, my books.... Had I ever left them? Could it be true that I had led men against machine-gun fire--and that I had killed? Were those boys who died beside me, smiling like children in their sleep, really dead? Was it all some hideous fantasy of an unhealthy brain--a gigantic charade invented by the greatest buffoon of all time? Futile.... Futile.... Futile. I cursed, and pressed my brow with my hands. It was a fight for sanity, as so many men have fought in the solitude of their rooms since the hell of Flanders. Like a panorama the events of the war crossed my mind, and yet those that stood out most clearly were the unimportant things that came as mere incidents during the unfolding of the world's destiny. The senior chaplain's dog, which was shot by an A.P.M. and mourned by a whole division ... the new arrival who thought he was a special charge of the Lord's, and who persisted in looking over the top during the day--we buried him next morning ... the night that the female impersonator from a divisional concert-party lured the colonel into amorous confession ... the little chap who got no mail at Christmas, and said he hadn't received a letter for two years ... one after the other these human trivialities coursed through my brain, forcing the vaster issues aside. From no apparent cause, the strain of reminiscence turned toward Basil Norman. I had seen him somewhere, but whether in London or in the country my poor tired brain seemed unable to determine. And then, with no regard for relevancy, I was with my battalion once more, marching with the Australians to hold a strategical point that one of our brigades had saved from the disaster of March. Who was it said that the Australians lacked discipline? Look at them grinning like youngsters at a game, with the odds against any coming out alive! Discipline? Hell!