‘Feel what?’ The colonel could not understand. ‘I don’t follow. D’you think I’m letting them get too slack? Surely it’s better to let them rest than to drive them too hard? They’d only get stale that way. There’s nothing more for us to do now but wait. Or do you think we should have more games? Pendleton’s driving his crowd mad with football and paper-chases, say it’s good for their morale. Should we be doing that?’

‘I don’t think it’s that exactly,’ said Norman. ‘Tell me, how do you feel?’

‘How do I feel? Well, I feel pretty confident.’

‘Yes?’

‘I feel prepared. We’ve got everything we need. We’ve – well, we’ve sort of cut the painter. Here we are living with our kits packed to assault scale, our equipment all buckled together ready to slip on, our pouches full of ammunition. Our mail is censored and we can’t go home. Damn it, Noel, we’re ready to go. That’s how I feel. Ready to go.’

‘Precisely. Now imagine how one of your own riflemen must feel. He’s just as ready, just as impatient. He’s confined to camp far more than you are and he knows much less about what’s going on. He’s living just now in a fever of impatience. In a little while he’ll start getting desperate. That keen edge that we’ve spent all this time sharpening will get blunted. That’s what’s wrong.’

‘Yes,’ said the colonel. ‘Do you know what they’ve started chalking on the transport?’

‘“No leave, no babies”? I saw it on a wall in town last weekend.’

‘A slightly different version. “No leave, no Second Front.” ’

‘I shouldn’t take that too seriously.’

‘Of course not, but it’s a sign, Noel, isn’t it?’

‘So was what happened to Blair and Richardson. And so are the charge sheets; men punching each others’ noses and slanging their n.c.o.s all over the shop.’

The colonel stroked his nose.

‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘it’s these flaps we’ve been having that have unsettled them. A couple of weeks ago this place was like a holiday camp. Nobody gave a damn.’