THE THEATRE OF WAR It is a far cry to Zermatt at the best of times, and that is not the middle of August.

The annual rush was at its height, the trains crowded, the heat of them overpowering.

I chose to sit up all night in my corner of an ordinary compartment, as a lesser evil than the _wagon-lit_ in which you cannot sit up at all.

In the morning one was in Switzerland, with a black collar, a rusty chin, and a countenance in keeping with its appointments.

It was not as though the night had been beguiled for me by such considerations as are only proper to the devout pilgrim in his lady's service.
On the contrary, and to tell the honest truth, I found it quite impossible to sustain such a serious view of the very special service to which I was foresworn: the more I thought of it, in one sense, the less in another, until my only chance was to go forward with grim humour in the spirit of impersonal curiosity which that attitude induces.