Major Blessington had retired to his tent, determined in his mind that now they were going behind the line he would lick this sloppy mob into something like shape.

‘That bugger takes me for a bloody lance-jack,’ said the regimental, hot and indignant, on his return. ‘Who put out those candles?’

‘I told Thompson to put two of ’em out,’ said Hales; ‘just to please the bastard, ’e can light ’em again now, if you like.’

‘He expects me to go to kip in the fuckin’ dark, I suppose? Give me some more of that bloody rum, Thompson. I’ve been shouting myself hoarse. What was I saying? Oh, yes! About how Bourne and I palled up at Tregelly. Well, there were these two bloody great Lancashire laddies firing their course there, and they were so thick you could never separate the buggers; but on the Saturday they went into Sandby for a spree, and got properly pissed-up there. They picked up with some woman or other, and she walked part of the way back with them over the golf-links. I don’t know exactly what happened, but when they came back into camp they started out to call each other everything they could get their bloody tongues round, and things went from bad to worse until one of ’em fetched the other an almighty clout on the jaw, which toppled the bugger over. When he got on his feet again, he went abso-bloody-lutely fanti; picked up a bayonet, and wounded his best pal in the arse. Of course he bled all over the fuckin’ hut, and that sobered him up a bit; but by that time every bugger there was trying to get the bayonet away from the other artist. Old Teddy Coombes got it. Do you remember old Teddy? Well, when the wounded man saw his best pal in the centre of what looked like a Rugby scrum: you know how all Lancashire men fight with their feet, it comes o’ wearing clogs, I suppose: he sailed in again from behind shouting out: “I’m comin’ Bill; give the buggers hell.” Bill was biting one of the recruits in the calf of the leg at that particular moment, so he didn’t really need any bloody encouragement.

‘Just at that moment I got back from the sergeants’ mess, so I began to take a lively interest in the proceedings myself, and the next minute there were two bloody scrums where there’d only been one before. However, at the end of the discussion, and it was a first-class scrap I can tell you, there was Teddy Coombes with about ten recruits sitting on one of the fuckin’ heroes, and there was I with another ten sitting on the other; and when you couldn’t hear anything else but loud breathing, two of the military police came in and wanted to know in a superior way what the fuckin’ hell all the noise was about. Would you credit it? Those two buggers had been at the door the whole time, and had been in too big a bloody funk to come in, until it was all over and they knew they weren’t wanted. Of course it was all up then; but it took a small army to march those two Lancashire laddies down to the clink all the same. They were a bonny pair all right. When I’d wiped the sweat from my face, and was taking stock of the situation, the first thing I noticed was Bourne, sitting up in his bed quite quietly, smoking a fag; and looking as though he thought the whole thing in very poor taste.’