‘Bourne, you can take that bloody bucket back to where you pinched it from,’ said Corporal Tozer, as he came into the tent, wiping the soap out of his ears with a wet and dirty towel, and Bourne slipped out as inconspicuously as a cat. Still rubbing his neck and ears Corporal Tozer caught sight of Pritchard’s face, and noticed the constraint of the others. Then he remembered Swale.

‘Get those blankets folded and put the tent to rights,’ he said quietly. ‘You’d better open it up all round and let some air in; it stinks a bit in here.’

He picked up his tunic, put it on, and buttoned it slowly.

‘Swale was a townie of yours, wasn’t he, Pritchard?’ he said suddenly. ‘A bloody plucky chap, an’ only a kid, too. I’m damned sorry about him.’

‘That’s all right, Corporal,’ answered Pritchard evenly. ‘Bein’ sorry ain’t goin’ to do us ’ns no manner o’ good. We’ve all the sorrow we can bear of our own, wi’out troublin’ ourselves wi’ that o’ other folk. We ’elp each other all we can, an’ when we can’t ’elp the other man no more, we must jes ’elp ourselves. But I tell thee, Corporal, if I thought life was never goin’ to be no different, I’d as lief be bloody well dead myself.’

He folded up his blanket neatly, as though he were folding up something he had finished with and would never use again. Then he looked up.

‘I took ’is pay-book an’ some letters out o’ ’is tunic pocket, but I left ’is identity-disc for them as finds ’im. If our chaps hang on to what we got, there’ll be some buryin’ parties out. There’s ’is pack, next mine. I suppose I’d better ’and them letters in at th’ orderly-room. There were a couple o’ smutty French photographs, which I tore up. ’e were a decent enough lad, but boys are curious about such things; don’t mean no ’arm, but think ’em funny. ’Tis all in human nature. An’ I’ll write a letter to ’is mother. Swales is decent folk, farmin’ a bit o’ land, an’ I’m only a labourin’ man, but they always treated me fair when I worked for ’em.’

‘I suppose Captain Malet will write to her,’ said Corporal Tozer.

‘Cap’n ’ll write, surely,’ said Pritchard. ‘’e’s a gentleman is Cap’n Malet an’ not one to neglect any little duties. We all knew Cap’n Malet before the war started, an’ before ’e were a cap’n. But I’ll write Mrs Swale a letter myself. Cap’n Malet, ’e mus’ write ’undreds o’ them letters, all the same way; ’cause there ain’t no difference really, ’cept tha know’st the mother, same as I do.’

‘Have you a wife and children of your own?’ Corporal Tozer inquired, breaking away a little.

‘’ad a little girl. She died when she were four, th’ year before th’ war. The wife can look after ’erself,’ he added vindictively. ‘I’m not worryin’ about ’er. Th’ bugger were never any bloody good to me.’