‘Why did you kill it?’ exclaimed Bourne, as Martlow buttoned his tunic over the warm, quivering body. Bourne thought hares uncanny creatures.

‘It’ll go into t’ pot,’ said Martlow, surprised. Mr Sothern came up, and offered him ten francs for it, and after some hesitation Martlow sold it to him.

Presently arrived magnificent people on horseback, glancing superciliously at the less fortunate members of their species whom necessity compelled to walk. Bourne, who loved horses, had seen nothing for months but mules, Rosinante, some sorry hacks ridden by their officers, and a few lusty percherons threshing corn on a kind of tread-mill outside a French farm. The sight of these daintily-stepping animals, with a sheen on their smooth hides, gave him a thrill of pleasure. He was less favourably impressed by some of the riders.

‘That bugger will give his horse a sore back before the day is out,’ he said, as one of the great men cantered by importantly.

’You’re learnin’ a lot o’ bad words from us ’ns,’ said Martlow, grinning.

‘Oh, you all swear like so many Eton boys,’ replied Bourne, indifferently. ‘Have you ever heard an Aussie swear?’

‘No, ’n’ I don’t want,’ said Martlow. ‘Them buggers ’ave too much spare cash to know what soldierin’ means.’

They fell in, and there was another moment of suppressed bad temper. Most of the new signallers went with H.Q. runners, but Weeper Smart, though he was close to them, had to carry the flapper with H.Q. signallers. The flapper was a device by which it was intended to signal to aeroplanes. One could see by now that most of the men were keenly interested; they knew that the plan was intended to supply them with a kind of map, on the actual scale of the trenches they were to attack. Their interest did not fade out completely as they advanced; but they rapidly became aware of the unreality of it all. The files of men moved forward slowly, and, when they reached the tapes, followed the paths assigned to them with an admirable precision. Their formations were not broken up or depleted by any hostile barrage, the ground was not pitted by craters, their advance was not impeded by any uncut wire. Everything went according to plan. It was a triumph of Staff-work, and these patient, rather unimaginative men tried to fathom the meaning of it all, with an anxiety which only made them more perplexed. They felt there was something incomplete about it. What they really needed was a map of the strange country through which their minds would travel on the day, with fear darkening earth and filling it with slaughter.

Bourne, Shem, and Martlow, with the other orderlies, were following close behind the Colonel, when the superb individual, whose seat on a horse had seemed to Bourne to call for adverse comment, galloped up to them, and reined in his mount.

‘What are all these men?’ he asked the Colonel, pointing almost at the embarrassed Bourne.