He held out a memorandum headed: “Grand Quartier General,” in French, to the effect that one desired it might be given appropriate attention. And another from a department of English General Head-quarters with “Passed to you, please.” “The French have had their knife into us for some time. This’ll be a nice case for them to take up. We must make an arrest at once. Sergeant!” That Sergeant was a famous London Architect. He came to the door of the ante-room in which he worked. “In what Corps Area is Hondebecq?” The Sergeant spotted it in a moment, on the big map pinned up on the wall. “Very well, wire them to take this up, and make an arrest.” “There is just one point I should like to put, sir!” As Dormer said it, he felt it to be “cheek.” His Chief turned upon him the eyeglass of a regular officer who found it rather difficult to imagine how a junior temporary officer could put a point. But Dormer had seen two Courts-Martial, and the thought of some poor brute hauled out of a trench, and marched about for no better purpose than that, kept him firm. “If an arrest is made, you will have to go on with the proceedings.” “Naturally.” “Then you will need a statement from the victim. If we had that first, we should know the truth!” “Well, you’d better go and get it, as you know the people. You can see Corps and insist on an arrest. But, most important of all, try what a little money can do. He says a thousand francs. Well, you must see what he will come down to.” Outside Divisional Head-quarters, Dormer turned to the right, to go to his billet, but a military policeman, stepping out from the shelter of the buildings, saluted. “They’re shelling that way, sir!” It gave Dormer a queer familiar feeling in the pit of the stomach. Shelling, the daily routine of that War. But being a very punctilious temporary officer, and taking his almost non-existent position in Divisional Staff very seriously, he pulled himself together. “Oh, well, they’d have hit me long ago, if they could!” He passed on, followed by a smile. He said those things because he felt them to be good for the morale of the troops. Sure enough, he had not gone many yards before the air was rent by a familiar tearing sound, followed by the usual bump and roar. It was well in front of him, and to the left, and he went on reassured. A few yards farther on, close to the side street where he was billeted over a pork-butcher’s shop, he noticed people coming out of their houses and shops to stare, while one elderly woman, rounder than any artist would dare to portray, asked him: