Then Ferrissey stepped quickly forward. ‘You’ll have to get back to the house, madam,’ he said sternly. ‘Manoeuvres. It’s for your own safety, ma’am.’ He took her gently by the shoulder and turned her towards the house. With his hand still on her shoulder he walked her back along the path. She was a tall, not unattractive woman.

‘Holy smoke,’ grunted Gonigle. ‘That’s his best yet. Come on.’ They hurried back to the road and waited. Minutes went by. Officers hurried along the ranks warning the men to put their mess tins away and get their equipment on. They waited for the whistle signal to fall in, and they watched the woods for Ferrissey.

The whistles were already shrilling when he reappeared. The woman was with him. He stood very close to her for a moment, then hurried back to the road.

The battalion moved off.

‘Bit of all right, Sarge, eh?’ said one of the men behind him.

‘Pick up the step,’ growled Sergeant Ferrissey.

There was less singing as the afternoon went by, and although the wind grew colder and attacked the column at hourly intervals with sudden flurries of rain, more and more men were unbuttoning the cuffs and collars of their tunics, tilting their helmets to the backs of their heads to ease the weight, and shifting their rifles from one aching shoulder to another.

They were marching southwards again towards the sea, and they had the long climb to the crest of the downs ahead of them. They trudged grimly upwards, leaning heavily forward, each man’s eyes on the pack bobbing in front of him, each man’s thumbs hooked in the straps of his equipment to take the strain off his back.

There were no more stragglers. The weak had all been cast off in the morning.

The leading platoons topped the crest and felt with joy the salt Channel gale battering again at their faces. Now there was only the march downhill into camp, with showers and a hot dinner and the red-hot stoves of their huts waiting for them.

‘I suppose,’ said Corporal Gonigle to Sergeant Ferrissey, ‘that after all this you’ll go dancing tonight. And find yourself another woman in the bargain.’

‘Not tonight, lad,’ said Sergeant Ferrissey. ‘These village girls are not for me. Snivelling little bitches not hardly out o’ school. Tits no bigger than ’alf a crown. And the way they behave!’ he exclaimed disgustedly. ‘Got no morals at all. Give me,’ said Sergeant Ferrissey piously, shifting his rifle to his left shoulder, ‘give me a nice, respectable ’ore any day.’

CHAPTER FOUR

Honeymoon Hall

OUTSIDE IT WAS DESOLATE; the clouds hurrying across a green, fantastic sky, the turf soft and sucking underfoot, the huts looming grim and black in the darkness, and the keen wind moaning in from the sea. But when the orderly sergeant stopped, shivering, outside the hut which bore on its door the neatly-painted signboard