HONEYMOON HALL (NUMBER NINE PLATOON)

and opened the door, he stepped into a little world of warmth. He closed the door behind him and shut out the vast and frigid night. Standing in this windowless, tunnel-shaped room, with the high double-decker wooden beds crowding along each side, with the firelight and shadow, the air heavy with heat, was indeed like standing in a tunnel deep underground remote from all the noises and troubles of the living world.

The men were crowded round the stove in the middle of the hut; this was the heart of their community. Some of them were sitting on their beds, others on four benches placed round the stove. Most of them were holding their wet, freshly blancoed packs or webbing equipment straps in front of them to dry in the heat of the stove; for it was Friday night, and this was a weekly duty. More equipment hung drying on lines across the hut.

‘Pay attention, lads,’ said the orderly sergeant. ‘Detail for tomorrow morning.’ He caught sight of a can of tea brewing on the stove. ‘I’ll have a drop of that, if you’ve got some to spare.’

‘Lay orf, blubberguts.’

The orderly sergeant was a big man but not sensitive about his bulk. He walked down to the other end of the hut and stopped in front of the man who had spoken.

‘Getting mingy in your old age, Charlie,’ he said pleasantly.

Charlie Venable looked up from his cards. Lank, black hair flopped down over his pale, V-shaped face. ‘Gawd,’ he said, ‘ain’t you dead yet?’

‘Old soldiers never die,’ said the orderly sergeant.

‘You ain’t exactly fadin’ away,’ said Charlie Venable, prodding the orderly sergeant’s sagging belly. ‘I should say you got triplets in there. Who done it, Sergeant?’

‘You will have your joke,’ said the orderly sergeant unperturbed. He badly wanted a drop of tea, and he knew that Charlie Venable was the man who mattered in this hut.

‘For Gawd’s sake,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m gambling. Go away. You bring me bad luck. ’Ere,’ he said violently, ‘give ’im a drop a char an’ get rid of ’im.’

‘Gambling,’ said the orderly sergeant, sipping his tea gratefully, ‘is a serious offence. Don’t let me catch you doing it.’

Charlie Venable held his hand of cards up in front of the orderly sergeant’s face. ‘Good enough?’ he asked.

‘Good enough,’ said the orderly sergeant solemnly, and nodded his head approvingly as Charlie raked in his winnings. ‘You’re a good gambler, Charlie,’ he said. This was the highest praise he knew for a soldier.