"Hide yourselves!" thought Tim. "Not thus is it written in my father's book of drill! It plainly said therein that the duty of a soldier was to learn how to die, not to hide from death." Crushed and dejected he returned that morning to breakfast to wolf a chunk of bread and butter, washed down by dishwater, misnamed tea. After breakfast he retired to a corner and thought it all out. The words of the Sergeant came back to him: "_Hide yourself if yer want to live!_" These words stuck in his memory, as words which bring a new light on an outlook will. That was the start of his demoralisation. He was the first of all his line who had been told to hide himself from death. No more the worsted bravery, the pipeclay, lace and scarlet. No more the old military swagger. No more the drummer boy with a waist like a French dancing girl, wrists like Bombardier Wells, and shoulders like a wooden man out of a Noah's Ark. No more the throbbing and growling of the drums; the staccato detonations and the insolent crescendoes of the drums. No more the wild music that the bands played to the men who fought at Minden, Malplaquet and Wynendael. No more the brushing of a comrade's arm one's own, inspiring boldness; no more a thousand red coats marching on the enemy with slow and unfaltering pace. Tim could see the men of his dreams now, in his mind's eye, marching with heads and eyes erect ... see, too, the smoke of continuous volleys bursting out along the steady lines as they fired by sections and companies on their foes. Well, it was all a thing of the past now. It was plainly his duty not to be reckless. "Do not be dashing, do not expose yourself, do not cheer and make a noise," they said; "creep along like a worm in the grass; be crafty, be wary--and fall down on the face before death." It did not stop there. Lastly and worst they took away the officers of his dreams. They even dressed them like privates and some were armed with rifles. There were no flashing swords to follow. Not once did he see an officer anything like his father's picture of the Duke of Wellington on the white horse pointing a curly sword to the skies and waving a cocked hat. Then there came the day when Tim made his first acquaintance with field training, and beheld a loose and disorderly scramble which men called an advance. To him it seemed just a mob of masterless men, crawling and crouching on the grass, firing as they passed, and bowing cringingly before death. It was a sight he could hardly endure--an exhibition offensive to any soldier whose forbears had learnt to achieve the impossible as a matter of routine and had held firm for half a day at Quatre Bras with never so much as the flicker of an eye-lid. Gad! there could only be one end to this kow-towing to death, and that would be disaster and disgrace. * * * * *