obliterated. While I was away I had almost forgotten about the Raid; but it seemed now that I’d always regarded it as my private property, for when it had begun to be a probability in April, Barton had said that I should be sure to take charge of it. My feeling was much the same as it would have been if I had owned a horse and then been told that someone else was to ride it in a race.
Six years before I had been ambitious of winning races because that had seemed a significant way of demonstrating my equality with my contemporaries. And now I wanted to make the World War serve a similar purpose, for if only I could get a Military Cross I should feel comparatively safe and confident. (At that time the Doctor was the only man in the Battalion who’d got one.) Trench warfare was mostly monotonous drudgery, and I preferred the exciting idea of crossing the mine-craters and getting into the German front-line. In my simple-minded way I had identified myself with that strip of No Man’s Land opposite Bois Français; and the mine-craters had always fascinated me, though I’d often feared that they’d be the death of me.
Mansfield had gloomily remarked that he’d something—well go on the razzle if he got through Thursday night with his procreative powers unimpaired. Wondering why he had been selected for the job, I wished I could take his place. I knew that he had more commonsense ability than I had, but he was podgily built and had never been an expert at crawling among shell-holes in the dark. He and Ormand and Corporal O’Brien had done two patrols last week, but the bright moonlight had prevented them from properly inspecting the German wire. Birdie’s language about moonlight and snipers was a masterpiece, but he hadn’t a ghost of an idea whether we could get through the Boche wire. Nevertheless I felt that if I’d been there the patrolling would have been profitable, moon or no moon. I wouldn’t mind going up there and doing it now, I thought, for I was wide-awake and full of energy after my easy life at the Army School. … Doing it now? The line was quiet tonight. Now and again the