“Yus, I went to find out me action station for meself the moment I seen we meant business. As soon as ever they told me it was here I asked them ’oo was to be the officer. An’ when the sub officer that told me comes out with this ’ere Pye’s name I says to myself, ‘well, it’s all up with you this trip, you silly old bastard, you’ve landed in it this time, that man don’t like yer, ’e’ll make it uneasy, you old fool, ah,’ ” and he slapped the back of his own head, too hard, Richard thought, “So ’e will. Soon as I gets back to my buildings I said to the Mrs., I says, ‘Well, mother, your old man’s in trouble again,’ ” and at this point he tried a laugh, “Well, ’ere’s the very best,” he said, raising his pint glass, “Yus, ’e’s found ’isself trouble again I says, posted to a station where the officer can’t bear the sight of ’im, oh, you unlucky old sod you,” he cried too loud, striking himself again with a board-hard hand.

It appeared that Piper could not understand why Pye disliked him. Richard investigated, found the old man was ignorant of the effect his interrogations and echoing had on the lecturer. Roe left him in ignorance. Then he heard Piper, at a time when everyone was expecting instant death, ask if he thought it the right moment to put forward a friend, a someone called Mary Howells, as cook.

“Depend upon it,” Piper said, “we shan’t always take our meals at this ARP canteen. I shall be sorry, mind, we’ve none of us ’ad grub like it at the price,” this when Roe had been too nervous to eat, and had not yet touched the sandwiches he had brought, “but they’ll give us cooks by what I understand, an’ I’ve known ’er a number of years.”

“It’s a bit soon, isn’t it?”

“Well, maybe it is a trifle previous, but if this sub officer was one you could talk to then I wouldn’t mind puttin’ in a word to nudge things along, like, and do meself a bit of good because I’ve known ’er years, she lives just along our street. Now you’re a man I prize, what d’you think, Mr. Roe?”

Richard advised delay. They were called out to do more sandbagging. Piper did twice his share, sometimes carrying as many as two full bags on his thin, wide, hollow shoulders.

•

Pye, when he took his rest, at the end of one more chaotic day, was no less calm than this old soldier; nevertheless, the imminence of war action physically excited him.

Pye also had been out in France last time and had known the earth he fought over cold, wet, frozen, thawed or warm, whichever it might be by the sky above, in mud, or cracked and dry, but, on occasion barely moist, cool so that it crumbled leaving hardly a stain on the fingers.