And now all the air is sickly with the smell of cooking, and the dry wood crackles in every corner; little wisps of smoke go straight up in the still air. All the Peninsula is beautiful in the sunlight, and wonderful to look upon against the dark blue of the sea; the dew sparkles on the scrub; over the cypress grove comes the first aeroplane, humming contentedly. Another day has begun; the officer goes down whistling to wash in a bucket. IV Such was life in the line at that time. But I should make the soldier's almost automatic reservation, that it might have been worse. There might have been heavy shelling; but the shelling on the trenches was negligible--then; there might have been mud, but there was not. And eight such days might have left Harry Penrose quite unaffected in spirit, in spite of his physical handicaps, by reason of his extraordinary vitality and zest. But there were two incidents before we went down which did affect him, and it is necessary that they should be told. On the fifth day in the line he did a very brave thing--brave, at least, in the popular sense, which means that many another man would not have done that thing. To my mind, a man is brave only in proportion to his knowledge and his susceptibility to fear; the standard of the mob, the standard of the official military mind, is absolute; there are no fine shades--no account of circumstance and temperament is allowed--and perhaps this is inevitable. Most men would say that Harry's deed was a brave one. I have said so myself--but I am not sure. Eighty to a hundred yards from one section of our line was a small stretch of Turkish trench, considerably in advance of their main line. From this trench a particularly harassing fire was kept up, night and day, and the Brigade Staff considered that it should be captured. High officers in shirt sleeves and red hats looked long and wisely at it through periscopes; colonels and adjutants and subalterns and sergeants stood silent and respectful while the great men pondered. The great men then turned round with the air of those who make profound decisions, and announced that 'You ought to be able to "enfilade" it from "over there,"' or 'I suppose they "enfilade" you from there.' The term 'enfilade' invariably occurred somewhere in these dicta, and in the listeners' minds there stirred the suspicion that the Great Ones had not been looking at the right trench; if indeed they had focused the unfamiliar instrument so as to see anything at all. But the decision was made; and for the purposes of a night attack it was important to know whether the trench was held strongly at night, or occupied only by a few busy snipers. Harry was ordered to reconnoitre the trench with two scouts.