‘There’s some talk o’ renewing the attack,’ he said shortly.

Jakes laughed with what seemed to be a cynical enjoyment.

‘O’ course it’s all our fuckin’ fault, eh?’ he asked grimly.

Sergeant Tozer didn’t answer, but turned to Bourne.

‘You don’t want to think o’ things,’ he said, with brutal kindness. ‘It’s all past an’ done wi’, now.’

Bourne looked at him in a dull acquiescence. Then he emptied the tin, replaced it on the bench, and, getting up, went to sit by the door again. He sat with his head flung back against the earth, his eyes closed, his arms relaxed, and hands idle in his lap, and he felt as though he were lifting a body in his arms, and looking at a small impish face, the brows puckered with a shadow of perplexity, bloody from a wound in the temple, the back of the head almost blown away; and yet the face was quiet, and unmoved by any trouble. He sat there for hours, immobile and indifferent, unaware that Sergeant Tozer glanced at him occasionally. The shelling gradually died away, and he did not know it. Then Sergeant Tozer got up angrily.

‘’ere, Bourne. Want you for sentry. Time that other man were relieved.’

He took up his rifle, and climbed up, following the sergeant into the frosty night. Then he was alone, and the fog frothed and curdled about him. He became alert, intent, again; his consciousness hardening in him. After about half an hour, he heard men coming along the trench; they came closer; they were by the corner.

‘Stand!’ he cried in a long, low note of warning.

‘Westshire. Officer and rations.’

He saw Mr White, to whom Captain Marsden came up and spoke. Some men passed him, details and oddments, carrying bags of rations. Suddenly he found in front of him the face of Snobby Hines, grinning excitedly.

‘What was it like, Bourne?’ he asked, in passing.

‘Hell,’ said Bourne briefly.

Snobby moved on, and Bourne ignored the others completely. Bloody silly question, to ask a man what it was like. He looked up to the sky, and through the travelling mist saw the half-moon with a great halo round it. An extraordinary peace brooded over everything. It seemed only the more intense because an occasional shell sang through it.

XVII

… on their watch

In the dead vast and middle of the night.

SHAKESPEARE

ALL the following day they were heavily shelled, and their own guns developed a terrific intensity of fire.

‘There’s too much fuckin’ artillery in this bloody war,’ said Jakes irritably, as though they had all failed to appreciate the fact. ‘You don’t get no sleep.’