And though in the bottom of his heart the officer believed him, though in a very strange way he felt interested in him, there are limits and there are rules. There comes a time, as he had said, when one can't judge by motives, when one can only judge by results.
"You mustn't only try; you must succeed. Three days to barracks."
That night in mess the officer sat next to the Colonel. "It's the thrusters, the martinets, the men of action who win the V.C.'s and D.C.M.'s, my dear fellow," said his C.O., as he pushed along the wine. "But it's the dreamers, the idealists who deserve them. They suffer so much more."
And as Major Seymour poured himself out a glass of port, a face came into his mind—the face of a stumpy, uncouth man with deep-set eyes. "I wonder," he murmured—"I wonder."
The opportunities for stirring deeds of heroism in France do not occur with great frequency, whatever outsiders may think to the contrary. For months on end a battalion may live a life of peace and utter boredom, getting a few casualties now and then, occasionally bagging an unwary Hun, vegetating continuously in the same unprepossessing hole in the ground—saving only when they go to another, or retire to a town somewhere in rear to have a bath. And the battalion to which No. 8469, Private Meyrick, belonged was no exception to the general rule.
For five weeks they had lived untroubled by anything except flies—all of them, that is, save various N.C.O.'s in A company. To them flies were quite a secondary consideration when compared to their other worry. And that, it is perhaps superfluous to add, was Private Meyrick himself.
Every day the same scene would be enacted; every day some sergeant or corporal would dance with rage as he contemplated the Company Idiot—the title by which he was now known to all and sundry.
"Wake up! Wake up! Lumme, didn't I warn you—didn't I warn yer 'arf an 'our ago over by that there tree, when you was a-staring into the branches looking for nuts or something—didn't I warn yer that the company was parading at 10.15 for 'ot baths?"