‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Very good’—then, half to himself: ‘Quite different, though.’ A pivot-man near us had shifted a little, instead of marking time, on the wheel. His face clouded, his lips moved. Obviously he was cursing his own clumsiness. ‘That’s what I meant,’ said the veteran. ‘Innocent! Innocent! Mark you, they ain’t doin’ it to be done with it and get off. They’re doin’ it because—because they want to do it.’ ‘Wake up! Wake _up_ there, Isherwood!’ This was a young subaltern’s reminder flung at a back which straightened itself. That one human name coming up out of all that maze of impersonal manœuvring stuck in the memory like wreckage on the ocean. ‘An’ it wasn’t ‘ardly even necessary to caution Mister Isherwood,’ my companion commented. ‘Prob’ly he’s bitterly ashamed of ‘imself.’ I asked a leading question because the old soldier told me that when his toe was sound, he, too, was a military policeman. ‘Crime? Crime?’ said he. ‘They don’t know what crime is—that lot don’t—none of ‘em!’ He mourned over them like a benevolent old Satan looking into a busy Eden, and his last word was ‘Innocent!’ The car worked her way through miles of men—men route-marching, going to dig or build bridges, or wrestle with stores and transport—four or five miles of men, and every man with eager eyes. There was no music—not even drums and fifes. I heard nothing but a distant skirl of the pipes. Trust a Scot to get his national weapon as long as there is a chief in the North! Admitting that war is a serious business, specially to the man who is being fought for, and that it may be right to carry a long face and contribute to relief funds which should be laid on the National Debt, it surely could do no harm to cheer the men with a few bands. Half the money that has been spent in treating, for example.... THE NORTH IN BLUE There was a moor among woods with a pond in a hollow, the centre of a world of tents whose population was North-Country. One heard it from far off. ‘Yo’ mun trail t’ pick an’ t’ rifle at t’ same time. Try again,’ said the instructor. An isolated company tried again with set seriousness, and yet again. They were used to the pick—won their living by it, in fact—and so, favoured it more than the rifle; but miners don’t carry picks at the trail by instinct, though they can twiddle their rifles as one twiddles walking-sticks.