"Oh, darn it, you know what I mean!"

"No, Fatty," said the sergeant solemnly. "I don't know what you mean, but I'll suggest this to you, Fatty. You go down to that Pete mule, down there at the end of the line and talk to him. I guess he'll understand you. I'm busy just now."

"I don't see what you're so hot about," said the pioneer sergeant in an aggravated voice, "but I'm going to see the boys come in anyway."

When the distant sound of the pipes coming from the direction of the front line was heard in camp, men of the various transport lines and base units lined up to watch the battalion come in. For the rumour had run that they had had a bad go, that they had beaten back no less than three rather formidable raids of the enemy and had been badly cut up.

More than that, by reason of the lack of reinforcements, they had had to do a double tour, so that they were returning from an experience of thirteen days, in what was indeed the veritable mouth of hell.

"I guess they are all pretty well all in," said Sergeant Matthews, who, standing with his pioneers, had been carefully avoided by his friend Sergeant Mackay. That enthusiastic Scot had for the time being abandoned his transport, and was fraternising with the transport men of the Highlanders, with whom he was sure he would feel himself in more complete accord.

"Here they come, boys," said a Scot, as the sound of the pipes grew louder. "There's a drummer for ye. Listen 'til that double roll, wull ye?"

"Ay, Danny, the boys will be shovin' out their chests and hitchin' their hips about something awful."

"Ye may say that, Hec. Will ye look at young Angus on the big drum, man, but he has got the gr-rand style on him."

"Ay, boys, they are the la-ads," said Sergeant Mackay, yielding to the influence of his environment and casually dropping into the cadence of the Highlanders about him, which, during his ten years in the west, his tongue had well-nigh lost. "It's a very fine thing, your pipers are doing, playing our boys out in this way, and we won't be forgetting that in a hurry."

"Why for no?" enquired Hec, in surprise. "It's the Highlanders themselves that love a bonny fighter."

Down the road, between lines of silent men, came the pipers with waving kilts and flying tartans, swinging along in their long swaying stride, young Angus doing wonders on the big drum, with his whirling sticks, and every piper blowing his loudest, and marching his proudest. Behind them came the men of the battalion marching at attention, their colonel at their head, grave of face and steady. Behind the colonel marched Major Bayne, in place of the senior major, whom illness had prevented from accompanying the battalion on this last tour, no longer rotund and cheery as was his wont, but with face grey, serious and deep lined.

After him at the head of A Company marched Captain Duff, his rugged, heavy face looking thinner and longer than its wont but even fiercer than ever. With eyes that looked straight before then, heedless of the line of silent onlookers, the men marched on, something in their set, haggard faces forbidding applause. At the rear of the column marched the chaplain alone, and every one knew that he had left up in the Salient behind him his friend and comrade, the M. O., whose place in all other marching had been at his right hand. All knew too how during this last go, in the face of death in its most terrifying form, they had carried out their wounded comrades one by one until all were brought to safety.

And all knew too, how the chaplain carried with him that day a sore and lonely heart for the loss of one who was more to him than batman, and who had become his loyal and devoted friend. The chaplain's face was gaunt and thin, with hollow cheeks, but for all that, it wore a look of serene detachment.

"Say, he looks awful tough," said a voice in Sergeant Mackay's ear.

Sergeant Mackay turned sharply around upon Fatty Matthews.

"Tough! Tough!" he exclaimed, with a choke in his voice. "You're a damned liar, that's what you are. He looks fine. He looks fine," he added again furiously. "He looks as if hell itself couldn't scare him."

In the sergeant's eyes strange lights were glistening.

"Yes, you're right, sergeant," said Fatty Matthews humbly. "You're right, and that's where he's been, too, I guess."

Bravely and gallantly, with the historic and immortal "Cock o' the North" shrilling out on the evening air, the pipers played them on to the battalion parade ground, where they halted, silent still and with that strange air of detached indifference still upon them. They had been through hell. Nothing else could surprise them. All else, indeed, seemed paltry.

Briefly, but with heart-reaching words, the colonel thanked the pipers for what he called "an act of fine and brotherly courtesy." Then turning to his men, he spoke a few words before dismissal.

"Men, you have passed through a long and hard time of testing. You have not failed. I am not going to praise you, but I want you to know that I am proud of you. Proud to be your commanding officer. I know that whatever is before us, you will show the same spirit of endurance and courage.

"We have lost this time twenty-nine men, eleven of them killed, and with these three very brave and very gallant officers, among them our medical officer, a very great loss to this battalion. These men did their duty to the last. We loved them. We shall miss them, but to-day we are proud of them. Let us give three cheers for our gallant dead."

With no joyous outburst, but with a note of fierce, strained determination, came the cheers. In spite of all he could do, Barry could not prevent a shudder as he heard the men about him cheering for those whom he had so recently seen lying, some of them sorely mutilated, in their grey blankets.

"Now, men," concluded the O. C., "we must 'carry on.' You will have a couple of hours in which to clean up and have supper, and then we shall have to-night a cinema show, to which I hope you will all come, and which I hope you will all greatly enjoy."

The colonel's little speeches, as a rule, elicited appreciative cheers, but this afternoon there was only a grave silence. After dismissal, the men went to their huts and were soon busy giving themselves a "high mark scrub" preliminary to the hot bath and "jungle hunt" in which they would indulge themselves to-morrow.

As Barry was moving off the parade ground, the junior major caught up to him, and took him by the arm and said:

"I have sent around my batman to your hut. He will look after you until I can pick out a man from the new draft. We all know how you feel about Hobbs, old man."

"Thank you, major," said Barry quietly. "I appreciate that."

"You will be around to-night," continued the major.

"No, I think not. I have a lot of things to do. All those letters to write." Barry shuddered as he spoke. For nothing in all his ministerial experience was to him a more exhausting and heartbreaking task than the writing of these letters to the relatives and friends of his dead comrades.

"I think you had better come," said the major earnestly. "I know the O.

C. would like it, and the boys would like it too."

"Do you think so?" said Barry. "Then I'll be there."

"Good man," said Major Bayne, patting him on the shoulder. "That's the stuff we like in this battalion."

Barry found his hut in order, his things out for airing, his tub ready, and supper in preparation.

"Thanks, Monroe," he said to Major Bayne's batman, as he passed into his hut.

As he entered his hut and closed the door, for the first time there swept over his soul an appalling and desolating sense of loneliness. It was his first moment of quiet, his first leisure to think of himself for almost two weeks. With the loss of his batman there had been snapped the last link with that old home life of his, now so remote but all the dearer for that. It came to him that while he remained a soldier, this was to be his continual experience. Upon his return from every tour new gaps would stare at him. Up in the lines they did not so terribly obtrude themselves, but back here in rest billets they thrust themselves upon him like hideous mutilations upon a well loved face. He could hardly force himself to remove his muddy, filthy clothes. He would gladly have laid himself down upon his cot just as he was, and given himself up to the luxury of his grief and loneliness, until sleep should come, but his life as a soldier had taught him something. These months of discipline, and especially these last months of companionship with his battalion through the terrible experiences of war, had wrought into the very fibre of his life a sense of unity with and responsibility for his comrades. His every emotion of loss, of grief, of heart-sickness carried with it the immediate suggestion and remembrance that his comrades too were passing through a like experience, and this was his salvation. Weary, sick, desolate as he felt himself in this hour, he remembered that many of his comrades were as he, weary, and sick and desolate. He wondered how the major's batman felt.

"Well, Monroe," he said with an attempt at a voice of cheer, "pretty tough go this time."

"Yes, sir, very tough," said Monroe. "I lost my chum this time," he added after a few moments' silence.

"Poor chap," said Barry. "I'm awfully sorry for you. It's hard to leave a friend up there."

"It is that, sir," replied Monroe, and then he added hurriedly but with hesitation, "and if you will pardon me, sir, we all know it's awful tough for you. The boys all feel for you, sir, believe me."

The unexpected touch of sympathy was too much for Barry's self-control.

A rush of warm tears came to his eyes and choked his voice. For some minutes he busied himself with his undressing, but Monroe continued speaking.

"Yes, sir, the Wapiti bunch is getting pretty small. Corporal Thom was with me--"

"Corporal Thom!" cried Barry. "Was Corporal Thom your chum?"

"Yes, sir, for six years we was on the Bar U. M. together. We was awful close friends. He was a good chum."

"Corporal Thom!" exclaimed Barry again; "he was your chum! He was a great friend of mine too. You have indeed suffered a great loss."

"He thought a lot of you, sir," said Monroe. "He has often talked to me about you."

"But what a splendid death!" cried Barry. "Perfectly glorious!"

"I didn't hear, sir," said Monroe; "I came down three days ago, and only heard that a bomb got him."

"Oh, splendid," said Barry. "Nothing finer in the war. Let me tell you about it. There was an enemy raid coming up. The corporal had got wind of it and called his men out. They rushed into the front line bay. Just as they got there, eight or ten of them, a live bomb fell hissing among them. They all rushed to one end of the bay, but the corporal kicked the bomb to the other end, and then threw himself on top of it. He was blown to pieces, but no one else was hurt."