growing on him of late. Some of the officers, too junior to understand
how uneasy lies the head that is crowned with the responsibility for
many lives, had been heard to say that the Colonel's manner and general
outlook upon the campaign was tinged with unnecessary anxiety, and that
he had no right to allow the Germans to disturb his peace of mind. If
this were so, the presence of actual and tangible danger completely
obliterated all traces of nerves. He stood up in the firing-line. He
drew himself up to the full of his height, and seemed to inhale with
pleasure the dangerous air. All the time bullets were humming overhead
like swift and malignant insects, or striking the ground with a spatter
of brown earth.

The Adjutant, following him, suddenly bent double as if he had been
struck below the belt; but the Colonel merely straightened himself, and
not a nerve in his phlegmatic face twitched.

"What's the matter?" asked the Colonel.

"Only a bullet struck my revolver hilt, sir," replied the Adjutant. It
had splintered the woodwork and been deflected between his arm and ribs.

Near by a man rose on his knees to get a better shot at the enemy.

"What's that man doing? Get down there this moment!" roared the Colonel.

Then, as he recognised an old soldier of the regiment, "Atkins, how
dare you expose yourself unnecessarily? Your wife used to do my washing
in Tidshot. Me? Oh, I'm only an old bachelor. It doesn't matter about
me. There's nobody to care what happens to me." And, well pleased with
his joke, the Colonel passed down the line, proud of his magnificent