IV

And now their pride and mettle is asleep.

SHAKESPEARE

THE next day they moved back to the sordid squalor of Méaulte, where they spent two nights housed in stables, and the draft ceased to have a separate existence, being absorbed by the various companies. There was a kit inspection, at which Bourne’s tin hat was condemned, the fact being entered in a notebook by Sergeant-Major Robinson; and that piece of ritual concluded the matter for the time being, the company-quartermaster-sergeant having no surplus tin hats at his disposal. At Méaulte they were still within the battle-area, and there was nothing for them to do. Shem, Bourne, and Martlow idled about, looking at the interminable train of motor lorries, which passed through, day and night, without ceasing, and so densely packed that it was difficult to cross the narrow street between them. Little Martlow had a grievance. In the attack he had annexed the field-glasses of two German officers, who being dead had no further use for them. At Happy Valley, seeing him needlessly decorated with the loot of battle, the commanding-officer had said to him peremptorily: ‘Hand over those glasses to me, my boy. I shall see that they are forwarded to the proper quarter.’ His action may have been correct, from the official point of view, but to little Martlow it was an unjustifiable interference with the rights of private ownership.

‘And now the bastard’s wearin’ the bes’ pair slung round ’is own bloody neck. Wouldn’t you’ve thought the cunt would ’a’ give me vingt frong for ’em anyway?’

‘Your language is deplorable, Martlow,’ said Bourne in ironical reproof; ‘quite apart from the fact that you are speaking of your commanding officer. Did you learn all these choice phrases in the army?’

‘Not much,’ said little Martlow derisively; ‘all I learnt in the army was me drill an’ care o’ bloody arms. I knew all the fuckin’ patter before I joined.’

Shem grinned maliciously at Bourne, who could never offer any serious resistance to Martlow’s rosy-cheeked impudence. Bourne had seen the boy blubbering like the child he really was, as they went over the top a couple of days earlier, but unaware that he was blubbering, and possessed at the same time by a more primitive fury than filled the souls of grown men. It was unsafe to give oneself the airs of riper experience with a boy of Martlow’s breed. Probably life to him had always been a kind of warfare; and his precocity at times could be disconcerting.

‘Voulez-vous m’embrasser, mademoiselle?’ he cried provocatively to a bovine female who replied only with a look of virtuous indignation. ‘Well, thank Gawd we’re going back to decent billets where there’ll be some chance of a bon time.’

They marched from Méaulte to Méricourt, and on the way an enemy plane swooped out of the blue and dropped two bombs, which exploding on the hard macadam sent gravel and road metal flying in all directions. In spite of their casualties the men were very steady, and though there was no cover, they moved quietly off the unenclosed road on to soft wet turf, which would stifle to some extent the effect of any more bombs. Some of our own planes at once attacked the Hun, and drove him off; a running fight ensued, but it was apparently indecisive. Evidently the enemy was challenging our temporary supremacy in the air with a new type of machine, for in the earlier stages of the battle he had not been very troublesome.