There was still scope however for Robert's ingenuity next time. There are other ways of getting to ports than by train. Why hold aloof from Motor Transport Drivers of the A.S.C. or be above making a personal friend or two among them? And if Orders limit the use of cars to officers of very senior rank, why be too proud to take a Colonel about with you? If when you get to the quay the leave boat wants you, but you don't want it, and if you want the Staff boat and it doesn't want you, it's no use arguing about it. You sulk unostentatiously in the background until both boats are full, and then you state a piteous case of urgent family affairs to the right officer, to find yourself eventually crossing with the comfort-loving civilians in their special boat. Robert was entirely satisfied with the way he wangled it, but, meaning to wangle it again in a few months' time, he decided to tell no one about it, not even John. But he did tell John as soon as he saw him, and John told the world. Thus, a further series of G.R.O.'s got written, published, and very carefully brought to the attention of all ranks.
The earth having become full of free booklets containing watertight rules and regulations for keeping officers to the straight and narrow path to the U.K., and the roads, railways, quays and gangways being policed with stalwarts whom it is impossible to circumvent and unwise to push into the sea, the only remaining resource is to apply to the Officer in Charge. I am told, at first hand, that there is as much variety in the reasons urged in support of applications as there is in the manner of the applicants. They attempt to melt him with piteous tales of their future in England, to shame him with gruesome pictures of their recent past in France, to hustle him with emergencies or special duties, or to bully him with dark references to unseen powers. I had a list of them from an M.L.O. himself, who was highly suspicious even of me, until he understood that I only wanted one thing in the world, and that was someone interesting to talk to while I waited for the leave boat to sail. Instance after instance he gave me of the low cunning of my species, to all of which, as I ventured to guess, he had proved himself equal. In the circumstances, as he said, this might suggest some hardness of heart on his part, but I readily agreed, was even the first to state, that there was no one in the wide world more anxious to assist our irrepressibles when bent on their hard-earned holiday. But he just couldn't do it. I put it for him that he was but the powerless and insignificant agent of an authority greater than himself.