Corporal Gonigle came up on to the platform. The solemn little corporal, who only took his horn-rimmed spectacles off when he was going into action, was the battalion’s poet laureate. After the first week of action he had published a poem in his company’s wall newspaper which began: ‘At Tilly, at Tilly, A little town in France, I didn’t half look silly, I had to change my pants.’ For tonight he had prepared a ballad set to the tune of ‘Casey Jones’, entitled ‘Craphouse Dan’. He pranced and clowned about the platform, glowing with delight at the laughter that surged from the half-darkness, chanting the adventures of ‘Craphouse Dan, an infantry battalion’s finest sanitary man, he took his ripest bucket into battle one day, the panzers took one sniff and then they ran away.’ He capered along the front row of the audience between verses, scattering sheets of toilet paper among them as if from a horn of plenty, and goading them to join in the chorus:

Craphouse Dan, always on the fiddle,

Craphouse Dan, a wily lad is he,

Craphouse Dan, he deserves a medal

The finest crap house wallah in the infantry.

He ducked from the platform amid frantic applause, hurried away into the trees, tripped over an outstretched leg and, amid laughter and shouts of welcome, seated himself happily among his comrades.

One after another the entertainers climbed on to the platform, boys from the rifle platoons, from the Signals, from the Mortars, shy or swaggering, to sing, to play the fiddle or the mouthorgan. The padre led community singing. The battalion was having a wonderful time.

The concert was drawing to a close, and the orchard was cloaked with warm darkness, when the back rows of the audience began a four-syllabled chant, ‘Di-ckie Craw-ford, Di-ckie Craw-ford, Di-ckie Craw-ford.’ The whole battalion took up the cry, roaring, ‘Di-ckie Craw-ford, Di-ckie Craw-ford.’

Rabinowitz left his piano and came to the edge of the platform. ‘They want you, Dickie boy,’ he shouted. ‘Come on up and keep me company.’

A group of men appeared, lurching towards the platform with Dickie Crawford kicking and struggling in their midst. He heaved himself out of their grasp and vaulted up on to the platform.

There was a roar of applause which continued as he consulted with Rabinowitz. The clapping and shouting died away as he announced his first song. ‘Oh,’ he sang, doing a double-shuffle round the edge of the platform, ‘we all got blue-blind paralytic drunk when the Old Dun Cow caught fire.’ More applause. He began to sing again. This time it was, ‘Cherry Ripe’. His voice was strong and sweet and pure. There was not another sound to be heard in the velvet night.