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talked in a natural, friendly way.
    Her hand came across the table for his cup. “More tea?”
    â€œAnd no sugar, please,” he said.
    â€œSorry! Did I give you some? Patient man. Why didn’t you shout?”
    â€œIcklingham is near Thetford, isn’t it?” he asked, glancing down at the parcel beside him.
    She nodded and put down her cup. “Um—on the outskirts of the heath.”
    â€œI’ve been across it on my motor-bike—rabbits by the thousand and heather and pines.”
    She nodded her head vigorously. “I love it.”
    That was rather refreshing. Most people dismissed the country as dull, or thought their own town slow.
    â€œTell me about it,” he said.
    He learned that she lived alone with her mother, that she was attached to a stationary hospital at a place called Hocqmaison, between Doullens and Arras, that she had a Scotch terrier at home named Tim, that she brought the Mess President into Doullens once a week to buy stores, that she loved tennis and hated bridge, that she had a brother at Oundle, that she had seen Chu Chin Chow twice, and loved George Robey, though he was rather low, and that she was going to see a divisional concert party that was giving a show in Hocqmaison on Friday.
    Suddenly she glanced at her wrist-watch and sprang up. “I must simply fly,” she cried. “Captain Grant said that he would be ready to go back by a quarter-past five.”
    They left the pâtisserie and walked down the street thronged with civilian carts, army cars, limbers and motor lorries. Her ambulance was in the square, parked with half a dozen other British vehicles, staff cars, box bodies, and a R.A.F. tender. Beside it stood a middle-aged R.A.M.C. captain. Berney began to apologize for being a minute or two late, but he cut in with, “Not a bit, Miss Travers. I have only just arrived, and there is no hurry, anyway.” And there was a twinkle in the eye that met Rawley’s as he added, “Can I give you a lift anywhere, Gunner?”
    â€œThanks very much, but I have a four-footed one of my own waiting for me,” answered Rawley.
    Berney climbed into the driving-seat, and with a wave of her hand to Rawley, drove out of the square towards the Arras road.
    Rawley jogged homeward on Lucy through the amber light of the sinking sun which gilded the leafy woods that crowned every hill. The drone of a homing aeroplane served only to emphasize the calm that attends the dying of a summer day. In the A.S.C. billet at the fork roads outside the village an unseen man was singing in the soothing contented manner that betokens pleasant fatigue, a day’s work behind and leisure ahead—the way men sing when polishing their boots before walking out for the evening. Round the last bend in the narrow road the first yellow-washed cottages of the village lay bathed in golden glory. Two men of the battery passed him with clinking spurs, whitened lanyards, and soldierly salutes. He rode slowly up the streets and mounted the short, steep lane to the mess.
    His canvas bath stood ready filled on the red-brick floor of his billet, and he had a cold sponge down before changing into slacks for mess. Altogether a successful day he mused as he stood clean and clothed, brushing his damp hair before his steel travelling mirror.
    IV
    The Major, Whedbee, and Piddock were in the mess talking to a stranger who was introduced as Rumbald, a reinforcement from Havre, posted to the battery. The Major asked about the collars he had commissioned Rawley toget him from ordnance, and Piddock asked facetiously whether he had been to the opera or attended a thé dansant at the Ritz. Rawley told them of his meeting Tankard at the Quatre Fils, but said nothing of Berney Travers. That would have been to invite facetious remarks, and he felt that it had been too nice an occurrence to become the subject of Piddock’s chaff.
    The conversation drifted back to London which