Shem was the moving spirit in an episode which might have brought himself, Bourne, and Martlow face to face with Colonel Bardon in a more unpleasant aspect. They were content with their work, and Corporal Hamley, and the section in general; but already the question had been raised as to what would be their duties when the battalion went into the line. Obviously they would be unable to act as signallers, except perhaps in the subsidiary duties, such as helping to repair or lay lines. Even Martlow, whose light touch and quick ear made him a very apt pupil on the buzzer, would scarcely be qualified for the duty. There being a shortage among the runners, they might be useful in that capacity.

Then it was arranged that for three consecutive days the whole battalion was to practise an attack, and once again this question emerged. They were told by the corporal that they were to report to their companies. Shem, who was quite a reliable person where all serious duties were concerned, but an inveterate lead-swinger with regard to any parades or fatigues which he considered unnecessary, promptly made a grievance of the matter.

‘Well, we’ve got to go.’

‘We haven’t got to go,’ said Shem. ‘I am willing to bet nobody in A Company knows anything about our going to them. We have only got to get into the loft here every morning, and we have a couple of days’ rest. It’s a gift.’

‘Please yourself,’ said Bourne reflectively; ‘but I would just as soon go out with the company.’

‘We’d be on the mat,’ said Martlow, dubiously.

‘If one goes back to the company the lot of us will have to go. There’s no sense in our going, unless we are going over the top with the company. These bloody practices are no good anyway. A lot o’ brass hats make the most elaborate plans, and they issue instructions to all concerned, and officers are taken to inspect a model of the position to be attacked, and then we’re buggered about, and taken over miles o’ ground, all marked out with tape to represent trenches; and then when everything is complete, and every man is supposed to know exactly what he has to do, the whole bloody thing is washed out, and we all go over the top knowing sweet fuck-all of what we are supposed to be doing.’

Shem’s simple and perspicuous account of Staff methods reduced Bourne to compromise: he proposed to visit his friends in A Company, Sergeant-Major Robinson and Sergeant Tozer, and find out how the land lay. Shem was recalcitrant.

‘You will only give the show away,’ he said obstinately. He refused to walk up to A Company’s billets with Bourne, who went with Martlow eventually.

‘I don’t mind bein’ on the mat, if it’s wo’th it,’ said Martlow reflectively.

‘It isn’t,’ said Bourne. ‘However, old Shem wants it, and we have to hang together.’

The sergeant-major and Quartermaster-Sergeant Deane were surprised when Bourne put his head in at the door, and asked if there were any parcels for him.