‘D’you hear that?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said Bourne, with dry brevity, and Shem fell back again flat, his eyes contemplating the rafters. Bourne sat immobile for a moment or two, and then drew in a quick deep gasp of air, to exhale it again in a sigh. He remained still.

‘What d’you do that for?’ asked Shem.

‘Do what?’

‘Gasp like that. I had an aunt who used to do that, and she died o’ heart.’

‘I don’t think that I’m likely to die of heart,’ was Bourne’s dry comment.

He lay down again, pulling the blanket up to his chin. It was only about half-past five; and in a few minutes they were both asleep again, while the rhythmic drumming of the guns continued.

After breakfast that morning, Bourne passed by the regimental’s tent, and saw his batman, who had just finished shaving, sitting on a box by the doorway. Bourne noticed that his boots had been barred.

‘I didn’t think you were going over the top with us, Barton,’ he said, his surprise giving his words the turn of a question.

‘The regimental didn’t want me to go,’ said Barton, blushing and smiling; ‘’e tried to work it so as I shouldn’t go, but they wouldn’t ’ave it.’

He was smiling, even as he blushed, in a deprecating way.

‘I don’t know what ’e wanted to bother for,’ he said reasonably. ‘It’s only right I should go with the rest, and I’d as lief go as stay. You think o’ things sometimes as seem to ’old you back; but it’s no worse for me than for the nex’ man. I think I’d rather go.’

The last words came from him with slow reluctance and difficulty; and yet the apparent effort he made to utter them, hurrying a little toward the end, did not imply that they were untrue, but only that he recognized a superior necessity, which had forced him to put aside other, only less valid, considerations. He was thinking of his wife and children, of the comparative security in which he had left them, and of what their fate might be in the worst event; but war is a jealous god, destroying ruthlessly his rivals.

‘You’re in B Company, aren’t you?’ Bourne asked him, trying to carry the conversation over these awkward reflections.

‘Yes,’ said Barton cheerfully. ‘They’re a nice lot in B Company; N.C.O.s an’ officers, they’re a nice lot of men.’

‘Well, good-luck. Barton,’ said Bourne quietly, moving away as the only means of relief.

‘Good-luck, Bourne,’ said Barton, as though he did not believe in luck.