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He said:

'You'd better let me have your address,' he added, for his mind was really wandering a little. There was too much talk! 'I suppose you'll go to No. IX Red Cross at Rouen for a bit.'

The Colonel sprang to his feet:

'My God, what's that?' he cried out. 'Me...to No. IX.'

Tietjens exclaimed:

'I don't know the procedure. You said you had...'

The other cried out:

'I've got cancer. A big swelling under the armpit.' He passed his hand over his bare flesh through the opening of his shirt, the long arm disappearing to the elbow. 'Good God...I suppose when I said my pals had gone back on me you thought I'd asked them for help and been refused. I haven't...They're all killed. That's the worst way you can go back on a pal, isn't it? Don't you understand men's language?'

He sat down heavily on his bed again.

He said:

'By Jove: if you hadn't promised to let me have the money there would have been nothing for me but to make a hole in the water.'

Tietjens said:

'Well, don't contemplate it now. Get yourself well looked after. What does Derry say?'

The Colonel again started violently:

'Derry! The M.O...Do you think I'd tell him! Or little squits of subalterns? Or any man! You understand now why I wouldn't take Derry's beastly pill. How do I know what it mightn't do to...'

Again he passed his hand under his armpit, his eyes taking on a yearning and calculating expression. He added:

'I thought it a duty to tell you as I was asking you for a loan. You might not get repaid. I suppose your offer still holds good?'

Drops of moisture had hitherto made beads on his forehead; it now shone, uniformly wet.

'If you haven't consulted anybody,' Tietjens said, 'you mayn't have got it. I should have yourself seen to right away. My offer still holds good!'

'Oh, I've got it, all right,' the Colonel answered with an air of infinite sapience. 'My old man--my governor--had it. Just like that. And he never told a soul till three days before his death. Neither shall I.'

'I should get it seen to,' Tietjens maintained. 'It's a duty to your children. And the King. You're too damn good a soldier for the Army to lose.'

'Nice of you to say so,' the Colonel said. 'But I've stood too much. I couldn't face waiting for the verdict.'

...It was no good saying he had faced worse things. He very likely hadn't, being the man he was.

The Colonel said:

'Now if I could be any good!'

Tietjens said:

'I suppose I may go along the trenches now. There's a wet place...

He was determined to go along the trenches. He had to...what was it...'find a place to be alone with Heaven.' He maintained also his conviction that he must show the men his mealsack of a body, mooning along; but attentive.

A problem worried him. He did not like putting it since it might seem to question the Colonel's military efficiency. He wrapped it up: had the Colonel any special advice as to keeping in touch with units on the right and left? And as to passing messages.

...That was a mania with Tietjens. If he had had his way he would keep the battalion day and night at communication drill. He had not been able to discover that any precautions of that sort were taken in that unit at all. Or in the others alongside...

He had hit on the Colonel's heel of Achilles.

In the open it became evident: more and more and more and always more evident! The news that General Campion was taking over that command had changed Tietjens' whole view of the world.

The trenches were much as he had expected. They conformed indeed exactly to the image he had had in the cellar. They resembled heaps of reddish gravel laid out ready to distribute over the roads of parks. Getting out of the dugout had been like climbing into a trolley that had just been inverted for the purposes of discharging its load. It was a nasty job for the men, cleaving a passage and keeping under cover. Naturally the German sharpshooters were on the lookout. Our problem was to get as much of the trench as you could set up by daylight.