‘I wasn’t taking any fortresses that night,’ said Bourne contentedly. He was drinking rum out of an enamelled mug; and the cooker with cover complete had passed, quite openly, so as to escape remark, into the hands of the storekeeper.

‘It made me bloody wild to see him sitting there like that. It didn’t seem to me that there was any esprit de corps about it. All right, you bugger, I said to myself, meaning him of course, I’ll get you yet. I didn’t know him then. Do you know Sergeant Trent? A first battalion man. I had been up at the mess with him, but he didn’t know anything about the scrap, as he’d gone straight down to the big barrack-room. He was going to put in for a pass until midnight on Monday, and make an excuse that he wanted to see his wife. Well, our two sportsmen from Lancashire, one of whom was suffering from what the M.O. described as a superficial flesh wound, though it would have been a damned sight more serious if he’d had it himself; they spent all Sunday recovering in the clink, and on Monday, after we got back from the range, they were up before the Camp Commandant. Bourne was escort; and you never, in all your life, saw anything so bloody funny as Bourne leading in my two Lancashire lads, either of whom could have put him in one of their pockets and kept him there. They’d nothing to say, very wisely, except that they really loved each other like brothers, and that the whole episode had been a pure accident. The Commandant was unsympathetic, and asked them whether they would take his punishment or go before a court-martial; and again very wisely they left it to him. You couldn’t have met a nicer pair of lads on the whole, except for their bad habits. He gave them all he could give them, which was a hundred and sixty-eight hours’ cells.

‘Well, they had to have an escort to Milharbour, and I arranged with the officer that Bourne and I should be the escort, the general idea being, of course, that if there were any more bloody trouble lying about he could help himself to all he wanted and a bit more as well; or if the lambs went quietly, then Bourne and Sergeant Trent and myself could have a merry party in Milharbour after we had handed them over, Bourne to be in the chair. We tried to put wind up him by telling him they were pretty hard-bitten offenders, and he seemed to mop it up. We got to the station, and then Sergeant Trent and I saw two pushers we knew from Sandby on the train, and Trent was pretty keen on one of them. …’

‘Thought you said ’e ’ad a wife in Milharbour?’ interrupted company-quartermaster-sergeant Hales, with the solemnity of a man who is a little drunk but still unsatisfied.

‘Well, she was no fuckin’ use to him when he was at Tregelly, was she? She didn’t live at Milharbour, either; and he wasn’t going to see her anyway. He was very fond of her really, and wouldn’t have done anything to hurt her feelings for a lot. Would he, Bourne?’