days there was no thought of the dream becoming a nightmare. …
So Clive Draycott and those with him, in that little rocky outpost of Empire, carried on as cheerfully as a wet sirocco wind and an ever-present heart-burning to be in France would allow, and waited for deliverance.
Perhaps they suffered more acutely than even those who were in the Great Retreat. Out of it, as they thought, out of it. Would they ever be able to hold up their heads again?
And then the worst thing of all: that awful day when the news came through—the news which England got one Sunday. Fellows kept it from the men as far as they could; they covered up places on the map with their hand, unostentatiously; and when they had found Compiègne they folded the map up, and told the men everything was well. It was that evening that Draycott and a pal watched the sun go down over Gozo from St. Paul's Bay, where the statue stands in the sea, and the shallow blue water ripples against the white sandstone.
"My God! it can't be true!" His companion turned to him, and his eyes were tired. "It can't be true. We're b" And his lips would not frame the word.
Only, in their hearts they knew it was true; and in their hearts a dreadful hopelessness wormed its bitter way. But crushing it down there was another feeling—stronger and more powerful. England could not be beaten, would not be beaten; the thing was
