A little to his surprise, Sergeant-Major Robinson indirectly supported him.

‘I was goin’ to ask you about Bourne, Major,’ he said. ‘Thought there might be a chance to shift ’im into the signals section, where ’e’d find things a bit easier, ’e’s pretty well buggered-up, an’ it’s not as though ’e were a slacker. ’owever, if ’e’s goin’ in for a commission. …’

‘That’s just the bloody difficulty,’ said the regimental. ‘I’d bet a level dollar that, when the captain asks him, Bourne will say he would rather stay as he is. Of course if he did, one could shove him into sigs. whether he liked it or not; that’s if we don’t get enough trained signallers in the new drafts. You can’t put an untrained man in, if there are trained men waiting. After all, we don’t get much chance of training men ourselves.’

‘Well, if I’d my way,’ said Sergeant-Major Robinson obstinately, ‘I’d let them bloody conscripts sweat a bit first.’

‘It’s no damned good talking,’ answered the regimental. ‘We’ve got to make the best of ’em. Once they’re here you can’t make any difference between them and the older men. They’ve got to shake down together, and you know it as well as I do. A good many of them are boys, too, who couldn’t have come sooner.’

Considering little Martlow and Evans, neither of whom were seventeen, the sergeant-major remained unconvinced; but he recognized the expediency of the argument, and no more was said. Sergeant Tozer walked off, surprised and flattered, both by the invitation and the manner of it. His importance showed a definite increase.

‘I don’t want to go and butt in among a lot of sergeant-majors,’ said Bourne petulantly; and his manner by no means implied that he considered sergeant-majors to be the salt of the earth. Then, with apparent reluctance, he allowed himself to be persuaded, Shem intervening effectively.

‘Take your cooker,’ said that astute counsellor. ‘It’ll do as a mug; and then if you can scrounge any buckshee rum for tea in the morning the cover will keep it good. See, it fits quite tight.’

Army rum is potent stuff, especially when the supplies of tea and water have run out, and one drinks it neat out of a dixie. They had just settled down comfortably, and the regimental was telling them some of his experiences with Bourne at Tregelly, when Major Blessington returned from visiting friends in the neighbourhood, and was heard shouting outside the tent. The regimental buttoned himself into his tunic hurriedly, shoved on a cap, and went out. The others in the tent heard the commanding officer say:

‘Sergeant-Major, don’t you think there’s rather a lot of light showing from the camp? Oh, I don’t mean from your tent.’

Then they heard the regimental, full of zeal, and bursting with suppressed blasphemy.

‘Put that light out! Put that light out!’ His voice showed he was moving about the camp. ‘Put that bloody light out!’

‘Put two o’ them fuckin’ candles out, Thompson, and please the bugger,’ said Hales, quartermaster-sergeant of B Company, who was one of the party in the sergeant-majors’ tent, to the store-keeper. ‘’e’s as fussy as five folks, now ’e’s out o’ the bloody line again. ’e don’t stir up there no more’n a mouse. It don’t make no differ to us; we can find the way to our mouths in the dark. ’ave you got a bit o’ cheese there ’andy? I could fancy a bit o’ cheese.’