"Come up this way," said Sam, and I followed him up the stairs and into a room occupied by the men of No. 11 section, my old section at Stob's Camp in Scotland. Disconsolately I told them my plight, and disclosed my plan guardedly. Sam Hiscock, faithful and loyal to his section, voiced the sentiment. "Come on with old No. 11; we'll look after you. All you have to do is hang around here, and when we're moving off just fall in with us, and nobody'll notice then; 't will be dark." "The big trouble is," I said, "I have no equipment, no overcoat, no kit-bag; in fact, no anything." "You've got a rain coat," said Pierce Power, "and I've got a belt you can have." Another offered a piece of shoulder strap, and some one else volunteered to show me where a pile of equipments were kept in a room. I followed him out to the room. In the corner a man was sitting on the floor, smoking. He was the guard over the equipments. He belonged to an English regiment, and so did the equipments. Sam Hiscock engaged him in conversation for a few minutes. The topic he introduced was a timely one: beer. While Hiscock and the guard went to the canteen to do some research work in beverages, I took his place guarding the equipments. By the time the two returned I had managed to acquire a passable looking kit. I spent the rest of the afternoon going around among my friends and telling them what I proposed to do. At eight o'clock I joined the crowd that cheered A and B Companies as they moved away, in charge of the adjutant and the colonel. When the major called C and D Companies to attention, I fell in with my old section C Company. The lieutenant in charge of the platoon I was with saw me, but in the dusk he could not recognize my face. I was thankful for the convenient darkness; and because it was fear of his invention that caused it, I blessed the name of Count Zeppelin. "Where's your rifle?" asked the lieutenant. "Haven't got one, sir," I said. The lieutenant called the platoon sergeant. "Sergeant," he snapped, "get that man a rifle." The sergeant doubled back to the barracks and returned with a rifle. The lieutenant moved away, and I had just begun to congratulate myself, when disaster overtook me. The platoon was numbered off. There was one man too many, and of course I was the man. The lieutenant did not waste any time in vain controversy. He ordered me out of his platoon. "Where shall I go?" I asked. "As far as I am concerned," he answered, "you can go straight to hell." I left his platoon; but when I did, I carried with me the precious rifle. The sergeant, a thorough man, had been thoughtful enough to bring with it a bayonet.