‘Noel,’ he said a few moments later, ‘I could do with a rest myself. I’m pretty fit, but I’m no chicken.’

There was a village in the valley below them, with the wind snatching at the smoke from its chimeys. Traffic crawled along a ribbon of road.

‘You don’t have to do all this,’ said Norman.

‘I have to,’ said the colonel. ‘I have to lead them, haven’t I? I have their lives to look after. My boy’s away at sea – his life’s in the hands of his captain. I can’t be less conscientious than I expect that man to be. Anyway,’ he chuckled, ‘I shall have my rest after the war.’

‘I know,’ said Norman. ‘I’ve heard it all before. A couple of years back in the business, then retire at fifty and leave it to the boy. But say the boy doesn’t want to. Suppose he likes the sea.’

‘Don’t worry,’ laughed the colonel. ‘He doesn’t want to remain a sailor any more than I want to remain a soldier when this lot’s over. He’s a shrewd boy. Got his head screwed on the right way. He’ll do well in the business, all right. And I,’ he said, ‘I shall retire to my potting sheds and cultivate roses.’

She’ll be coming round the mountains when she comes,

She’ll be coming round the mountains when she comes –

The battalion was marching in the sheltered valley, steel-shod boots crashing on the metalled road. Women were coming to the gates of cottage gardens with buns and apples; there was shouting and jesting all along the ranks. Dogs and children raced and tumbled alongside; small boys on bicycles came swooping past the column ringing their bells madly.

Roll out the barrel,

We’ll have a barrel of fun,

Roll out the barrel.

We’ve got the blues on the run.

The first stragglers had fallen out already, the men who were working their loaves. They sat by the roadside loosening their bootlaces amid a storm of jeers from the passing platoons, or limped exaggeratedly towards the rear under a barrage of ribald comment from the ranks.

Now’s the time to roll the barrel,

For the gang’s all here.

A halt. Sergeant Ferrissey sat on a milestone with his platoon squatting and sprawling all round him. Sergeant Ferrissey was a handsome, dangerous man, with a lean, wine-dark face, a black moustache and eyes like black berries under their lids. He was going through his letters.

‘Ten bob from my woman in Exeter,’ he announced, unfolding a postal order.

‘Twenty fags from a woman in Andover.’ This acknowledging of tributes was a daily ritual of his. He opened a third letter.

‘Which of your women is that from?’ asked his corporal, a solemn little ex-schoolteacher named Gonigle.

‘The wife,’ said Sergeant Ferrissey disgustedly. ‘Half a bleeding crown.’

Quando nel fango debbo caminar