We advanced again to Mametz, and there, mercifully, I got another dose of gas. The effects of the first one, seven days previously, had not worked off. This was the last straw. Three days later it toppled me over. The doctors labelled me and sent me home. PART IV _THE ARMISTICE_ 1 The battery, commanded by I know not whom, went on to the bitter end in that sweeping advance which broke the Hindenburg line and brought the enemy to his knees. Their luck held good, for occasional letters from the subalterns told me that no one else had been killed. The last I heard of them they were at Tréport, enjoying life with the hope of demobilization dangling in front of their eyes. May it not dangle too long. For me the war was over. I have never fired a gun again, nor, please God, will I ever do so. In saying the war was over I was wrong. I should have said the fighting. There were other and equally terrible sides of this world-tragedy which I was destined to see and feel. Let me sketch briefly the facts which led to my return to duty. The Medical Authorities sent me to a place called The Funkhole of England, a seaside town where never a bomb from airships or raiding Gothas disturbed the sunny calm, a community of convalescent hospitals with a list of rules as long as your arm, hotels full of moneyed Hebrews, who only journeyed to London by day to make more money, and retired by night to the security of their wives in the Funkhole, shop-keepers who rejoiced in the war because it enabled them to put up their prices two hundred per cent., and indecent flappers always ready to be picked up by any subaltern. The War Office authorities hastened to notify me that I was now reduced to subaltern, but somehow I was “off” flappers. Another department begged me to get well quickly, because, being no longer fit to command a battery, I was wanted for that long-forgotten liaison job. The explanation of degrading from Major to subaltern is not forthcoming. Perhaps the Government were thinking of the rate payers. The difference in pay is about two shillings and sixpence a day, and there were many thousands of us thus reduced.--But it does not make for an exuberant patriotism. My reply was that if I didn’t go out as a Major, I should not hurry to get well. This drew a telegram which stated that I was re-appointed acting-Major while employed as liaison officer, but what they gave with one hand they took back with the other, for the telegram ordered me to France again three weeks before the end of my sick leave.