He confronted these questions ill at ease inwardly. Outwardly, as he had assured his wife, he carried "a stiff tail." The politeness of the Belgians oppressed him. If he came into the ward and addressed a man lying in bed, the poor fellow would struggle to sit up and salute him. One cheery-faced boy, with eight wounds, passed the time laughing and crying; then he would fall asleep, smiling in his sleep like a child. But recruiting had been damped down by Authority, because housing and equipment were so short. Sir Geoffrey was not encouraged to stump the county--as he offered to do--and deliver his lecture. His old school-fellow at the War Office gave him a hint: "We want the men, but not too many at once." In the village, women not engrossed with Red Cross work sewed feverishly upon shirts and pyjamas, and knitted comforters. The Squire examined some of the pyjamas, and exclaimed: "Thank God! I don't have to wear them." Shooting and hunting and football went on much as usual, to the amazement of our French Allies. Some of our cavalry regiments in France wanted to import a pack of hounds. The French Mandarins forbade it. Early in January, a curt telegram from the War Office reached Sir Geoffrey, as he stood in the hall, after a day in his coverts, shooting cock-pheasants. "Lionel Pomfret wounded, degree not stated." Next morning, Sir Geoffrey hastened to London and to the War Office. No details were forthcoming. The men he saw were kind and sympathetic. Captain Pomfret might be badly wounded, but the odds were against that. The anxious father couldn't find out where his son was, or even where he was likely to be. He engaged rooms at a hotel and spent a wretched afternoon at his club. Twenty-four hours dragged themselves by. He was wondering how much longer he could bear the strain, when the second telegram reached him. "Arrived Southampton. Destination unknown. Love. LIONEL." The Squire, you may be sure, shared these good tidings with many friends, who congratulated him warmly. Obviously, the wound must be light. Exasperations followed, thick and fast. Sir Geoffrey hurried to the War Office, and thence to the Admiralty, and finally to Waterloo, where, eventually, he had the joy of seeing his son step out of a train, with a much-bandaged head, but apparently fit and in the highest spirits. A bit of shrapnel had knocked him down, inflicting a superficial scalp-wound, which was healing rapidly. Across his overcoat was a perfectly-defined cut made by a bullet which had missed him and killed the man at his side. He shewed his father a scar upon his neck, where another bullet had grazed him. Lionel talked fast and fluently. He had been in innumerable small actions since Mons, and had seen whole regiments cut to bits.