The Colonel, of course, occupied the place of warmth next the stove. The remainder of the Mess got as near to it as they could. The result was, that when the Colonel began to question him as to the object of his visit, and how he had progressed towards attaining it, everybody necessarily heard the whole of the conversation. He now realized that he was telling the tale for the fourth time. He had told it to Kavanagh, then to Colonel Birchin. Now he had told it to the Officer commanding 469 T.M.B. and finally here he was going over it again. He resented it as a mere nuisance, but was far from seeing at that moment the true implication of what he was doing. The matter was not a State secret. It was an ordinary piece of routine discipline, slightly swollen by its reactions in the French Mission, and by the enormous size and length of the War. If he had refused to say why he was there the Colonel would certainly have put him down as having been sent by the Division, or some one even higher, to spy on the activities of the School. He didn’t want to be labelled as that, so told what he knew glibly enough. The Colonel waxed very voluble over it, gave good advice that was no earthly use, and dwelt at length on various aspects of the case. The French were grasping and difficult and superstitious, but on the other hand, drivers were a rough lot and must be kept in check. They were always doing damage. The fellow was quite right of course to look after his mules. The animals were in a shocking state, etc., etc., but quite wrong, of course, to damage civilian property, tradition of the British Army, since Wellington all the other way, the French naturally expected proper treatment, etc., etc. Dormer had heard it all before, from Colonel Birchin, Major Stevenage and others, with exactly the same well-meant condescension, and the same grotesque ineffectiveness. This old Colonel, like all his sort, couldn’t solve the difficulty nor shut the French up, nor appease G.H.Q. Presently, the old man went off to the orderly room to sign the day’s correspondence, the Mess thinned and Dormer dozed discreetly, he had had a poor night and was desperately sleepy. Some one came to wake him up and offered him a wash, and he was glad to move, stiff with cold, and only anxious to pass the time until he could get the midnight train from Bailleul. They were very hospitable, made much of him at dinner, and he ate and drank all he could get, being ravenous and hoping to sleep through the discomforts of the long train journey in the dark. He was getting fairly cheerful by the time the Colonel left the hut, and only became conscious, in the intervals of a learned and interesting discussion of the relative theories of wire-cutting, that a “rag” was in progress at the other end of the room.