CHAPTER II.
At 7.10 on a foggy February morning Victoria Station looked a place of mystery within which a mighty work was going forward.

Electric lights still shone in the gloom, and whereas innumerable units of life ran this way and that like ants disturbed, an equal number stood about apparently indifferent and unperturbed.

Tommies who had found a place against a wall or seat deposited rifle and pack close by, lit a pipe, and let the world go by, content that when the officers' leave train had gone someone, or some Providence, would round them up as well.

But, for the rest, porters, male and female, rushed up with baggage; trunks were pushed through the crowd with the usual objurgations; subalterns, mostly loud and merry, greeted each other or the officials, or, more subdued, moved purposefully through the crowd with their women-folk, intent on finding a quieter place farther up the platforms.
There was no mistaking the leave platform or the time of the train, for a great notice drew one's attention to it.

Once there, the Army took a man in hand.