push. Then suddenly I was ordered home to report to the War
Office, and passed on by them to Bullivant and his merry men. So
here I was sitting in a railway carriage in a grey tweed suit, with a
neat new suitcase on the rack labelled C.B. The initials stood for
Cornelius Brand, for that was my name now. And an old boy in the
corner was asking me questions and wondering audibly why I
wasn't fighting, while a young blood of a second lieutenant with a
wound stripe was eyeing me with scorn.

The old chap was one of the cross-examining type, and after he
had borrowed my matches he set to work to find out all about me.
He was a tremendous fire-eater, and a bit of a pessimist about our
slow progress in the west. I told him I came from South Africa and
was a mining engineer.

'Been fighting with Botha?' he asked.

'No,' I said. 'I'm not the fighting kind.'
The second lieutenant screwed up his nose.

'Is there no conscription in South Africa?'

'Thank God there isn't,' I said, and the old fellow begged
permission to tell me a lot of unpalatable things. I knew his kind and
didn't give much for it. He was the sort who, if he had been under
fifty, would have crawled on his belly to his tribunal to get
exempted, but being over age was able to pose as a patriot. But I
didn't like the second lieutenant's grin, for he seemed a good class
of lad. I looked steadily out of the window for the rest of the way,
and wasn't sorry when I got to my station.