'A man with nerves like a chicken is a damned fool to go into the infantry at all,' put in Williams—'the honour of the regiment' person.

'Yes, but he may have had a will-power like a lion, and simply made himself do it.'

'You'd be all right, Smith,' somebody said, 'if you didn't use such long words; what the hell do you mean by an absolute standard?'

'Sorry, George, I forgot you were so ignorant. What I mean is this. Take a case like Penrose's: All they ask is, was he seen running the wrong way, or not going the right way? If the answer is Yes—the punishment is death, et cetera, et cetera. To begin with, as I said, they don't consider whether he was capable physically or mentally—I don't know which it is—of doing the right thing. And then there are lots of other things which we know make one man more "windy" than another, or windier to-day than he was yesterday—things like being a married man, or having boils, or a bad cold, or being just physically weak, so that you get so exhausted you haven't got any strength left to resist your fears (I've had that feeling myself)—none of those things are considered at all at a court-martial—and I think they ought to be.'

'No,' said Foster, 'they ought to be considered before they decide to have a court-martial at all. A case like Penrose's never ought to have got so far.'

'You're right—I don't know why the devil it did.'

'After all,' said Williams, 'you've got to consider the name of the regiment. What would happen——'

But I could not stand any more of that. 'I think Smith's on the right line,' I said, 'though I don't know if it would ever be workable. There are, of course, lots of fellows who feel things far more than most of us, sensitive, imaginative fellows, like poor Penrose—and it must be hell for them. Of course there are some men like that with enormously strong wills who manage to stick it out as well as anybody, and do awfully well—I should think young Aston, for instance—and those I call the really brave men. Anyhow, if a man like that really does stick it as long as he can, I think something ought to be done for him, though I'm damned if I know what. He oughtn't....'

'He oughtn't to be allowed to go on too long—that's what it comes to,' said Smith.

'Well, what do you want,' Foster asked, 'a kind of periodical Wind-up Examination?'