Nevertheless orders were orders and I obeyed them and came out. Having
a private conversation with Fortune on the way down the communication
trench, I thanked her very sincerely for her kindness and said I was
so grateful that I would never ask her for anything else.

But you know human nature as well as I do; I soon found myself saying
what a hard life it was in an office, and how one missed the open-air
life one had with one's regiment and the healthy appetite it gave
one. Besides which, as I pointed out to Fortune, my solid worth wasn't
being recognised as it should be. "I don't ask for favours," I told
her. "All I ask is bare justice." Now, if I'd been Fortune, Charles,
and a man had spoken to me like that, after all I'd done for him, I'd
have had him marching up that communication trench again, with a full
pack, at five o'clock in the very next forenoon.

But Fortune, ever kind and forgiving, did no such thing. She
did remonstrate with me gently of nights, when the noise of the
bombardments was particularly fierce and prolonged. "What about those
poor fellows right up in front," she said, "who are sitting out in
the wind and the rain and going through _that_?" "Yes," said I,
"what about them? Can't you do something for them? Do you know that
this is their fourth night of it in succession, and the only bit of
change you've been able to give them was sleet instead of rain on the
Sunday?" That used to put Fortune in the cart, and she'd try and work
the conversation round to my own case again. But what with the wind
and the noise and the downpour and the mud, I was too hot on the
other subject, and I said that Fortune ought to be ashamed of herself,
carrying on like that; and it was a disgraceful war and the police
ought to stop it, and I'd a very good mind to write to the papers
about it.