"A and B Companies leave here at eight this evening," he said. "C and D Companies an hour later. They march to Aldershot railway station, and entrain there."
I left the group around the board and walked over to the office of the adjutant. He was busy giving instructions about his baggage.
"Well," he said, "what do you want?"
"I want to go with the battalion this evening, sir," I said.
He questioned me; and when he found out all the facts, told me that I couldn't go. I didn't wait any longer. As I went out the door, I could just hear him murmur something about my not having the necessary papers. But I wasn't thinking of papers just then. I was wondering how I could get away. I vowed that if I could possibly do it I would go with the battalion. I was passing one of the stairways when I heard some one yell, "Is that you, Corporal Gallishaw?" I turned. It was Sam Hiscock, one of my old section.
"Hello, Sam," I said. "I didn't know where to look for old No. 11 section. They've all been changed about since they came here."
"Come up this way," said Sam, and I followed him up the stairs and into a room occupied by the men of No. 11 section, my old section at Stob's Camp in Scotland.
Disconsolately I told them my plight, and disclosed my plan guardedly. Sam Hiscock, faithful and loyal to his section, voiced the sentiment. "Come on with old No. 11; we'll look after you. All you have to do is hang around here, and when we're moving off just fall in with us, and nobody'll notice then; 't will be dark."
"The big trouble is," I said, "I have no equipment, no overcoat, no kit-bag; in fact, no anything."
"You've got a rain coat," said Pierce Power, "and I've got a belt you can have." Another offered a piece of shoulder strap, and some one else volunteered to show me where a pile of equipments were kept in a room. I followed him out to the room. In the corner a man was sitting on the floor, smoking. He was the guard over the equipments. He belonged to an English regiment, and so did the equipments. Sam Hiscock engaged him in conversation for a few minutes. The topic he introduced was a timely one: beer. While Hiscock and the guard went to the canteen to do some research work in beverages, I took his place guarding the equipments. By the time the two returned I had managed to acquire a passable looking kit. I spent the rest of the afternoon going around among my friends and telling them what I proposed to do. At eight o'clock I joined the crowd that cheered A and B Companies as they moved away, in charge of the adjutant and the colonel. When the major called C and D Companies to attention, I fell in with my old section C Company. The lieutenant in charge of the platoon I was with saw me, but in the dusk he could not recognize my face. I was thankful for the convenient darkness; and because it was fear of his invention that caused it, I blessed the name of Count Zeppelin.