“I believe the old man had a momentary feeling that he ought to crime some one--but our Adjutant--topping chap--met them in the passage and gave them a soft answer, and cooked up some sort of report, and sent it up. It pacified ’em.” “Did they need it?” “Not really. ’Pon me word, never saw anything more reasonable in my life, than what they had written out. It’s too bad, hanging ’em up for months and months, while other people get their jobs. They know what they want so much better than anyone else.” “It’s impossible to please every one.” “Yes. But when you think of what the men have done.” Dormer did not reply. He was thinking of the Infantry, with their whole possessions on their backs, always in front in the advance, last in the retreat. The Gunner took his leave. Like everything else, either because of the incident, or more probably without any relation to it, the slow but steady progress of demobilization went on, those men who had the more real grievance, or the greater power of expression, got drafted off. The composition of units was always changing. Even where it did not, what could “other ranks” do? To the last Dormer felt his recurrent nightmare of the Headless Man to be the last word on the subject. But it was becoming fainter and fainter as the violence of the first impression dimmed, keeping pace with the actuality of the dispersal of that khaki nation that lay spread across France, Germany, Italy, the Balkans, and the East. The Headless Man was fading out. * * * * * It was mid-April, the first fine weather of the year, when his own turn came. Of course the Mess gave him a little dinner, for although nothing on earth, not even four years of War, could make him a soldier, his length of service, varied experience, and neat adaptability had made him invaluable; again no one had ever found it possible to quarrel with him; further, his preoccupation with games had made him perhaps the most sought-for person in the Brigade.