But when young Wallace summed up the subject with 'Well, all I can say is he's a cold-footed swine, and deserves all he gets,' I exploded. 'You ---- young pup,' I said, 'just out, and hardly seen a shot fired--you dare to say anything about Penrose. I tell you you're not fit to lick his boots. Do you know that he joined up in the ranks in August '14, and went through Gallipoli, and had done two years' active service before you even had a uniform? Do you know he's just refused a job at home in order to come out here, and another job at the Base? Does that look like cold feet? You wait till you've been out a year, my son, before you talk about cold feet. You----' But I couldn't control myself any further. I went out, cursing. III Then I got leave to go and see Harry. He was in his billet, in a small bedroom on the ground floor. There was a sentry standing at the window, fixed bayonet and all, so that he should neither escape nor make away with himself. He was surprised and, I think, really pleased to see me, for before me, as he said, or any one who knew his history, he was not ashamed.... It was only when the ignorant, the Wallaces, were near that he was filled with humiliation, because of the things he knew they were thinking. 'That sentry out there,' he told me, 'was in my platoon at Gallipoli--one of my old men; just before you came in he tapped on the window and wished me luck; he said that all the "old lads" did the same.... It bucked me up no end.' Not that he needed much 'bucking up.' For he was strangely quiet and resigned--more nearly at peace with everything than I had seen him for many months. 'Only,' he said, 'I wish to God that I was a single man, and I wish to God they would get on with it....' He had been under arrest for six weeks, six solid weeks ... carted about from place to place like some animal waiting for slaughter; while the Summaries of Evidence and the Memos and the Secret Envelopes went backwards and forwards through 'Units' and through 'Formations,' from mandarin to mandarin, from big-wig to big-wig; while generals, and legal advisers, and judge advocates, and twopenny-halfpenny clerks wrote their miserable initials on the dirty forms, and wondered what the devil they should decide--and decided--nothing at all. All this terrible time Harry had been writing to his wife, pretending that all was well with him, describing route marches and scenery, and all the usual stuff about weather and clothes and food.... Now at least somebody _had_ decided, and Harry was almost happy. For it was an end of suspense.... 'Once they settled on a court-martial,' he said, 'I knew I was done ... and except for Peggy, I don't care.... I don't know what they've told you, but I'd like you to know what really happened. I found the battalion at Monval (the same old part), and got there feeling pretty rotten. Old Philpott, of course, sent me off with a working-party like a shot out of a gun--before I'd been there an hour.