The adventures of an ensign

How it begins

This story, like so many others in England’s military history, opens at Waterloo Station. We shall abridge the formalities of introducing its central figure, for he can only claim attention in connection with certain military events in which he played a diminutive rôle. Indeed, save for the fact that he is wearing the service uniform of one of the Guards’ regiments, there is nothing to distinguish him from the thousands of other second lieutenants, insignificant even as he, whose share in shaping the destinies of the world on the battlefields of France and Belgium has likewise begun at one or other of the great London termini.