‘Cushy place, this,’ said Shem contentedly. ‘Wonder what the village is like, it would be all right if we were billeted here for a week; that is, unless we’re going on to some decent town.’

‘Some bloody thing’s bitin’ my legs,’ said Martlow after a few minutes.

‘Mine, too,’ said Bourne. ‘What the hell …?’

‘I’m alive with the buggers,’ said Pritchard angrily.

Men were scratching and cursing furiously, for the straw swarmed with hen-fleas, which seemed to bite them in a hundred different places at one and the same time. Compared with these minute black insects of a lively and vindictive disposition, lice were merely caressing in their attentions; and the amount of profane blasphemy which broke from the surprised and discomfited men was of an unusual fervour. For the moment they were routed, scratching themselves savagely with dirty fingernails; and then gradually the bites decreased, and they seemed, with the exception of an occasional nip, to have become immune, hen-fleas apparently preferring a more delicate pasture. They caught one or two with considerable difficulty, and examined them curiously: after all, they were not so repulsive as the crawling, white, crab-like lice, which lived and bred, hatching in swarms, on the hairy parts of one’s body. These were mere raiding pleasure-seekers, and when the first onset had spent its force, the fitful skirmishes which succeeded it were endurable.

Old soldiers say that one should never take off boots and socks, after a march, until one has cooled down, and the swelling in legs and feet has vanished; bathing hot swollen feet only makes them tender. They rested until tea was ready, and in the distribution of rations they were lucky; a loaf of bread among four, and a tin of butter and a pot of jam among six. Shem, Bourne, and Martlow ate, smoked and then, taking towels and soap, followed the river until they found some seclusion, and there they stripped and bathed. They did not know that bathing had been forbidden, and even after they had dressed themselves partly again they sat on the bank with their feet on the gravel bottom, letting the water ripple over them. One of the regimental police found them there, and rapped out an adjectival comment on their personal characters, antecedents, and future prospects, which left nothing for the imagination to complete. As they showed an admirable restraint under the point and emphasis of his remarks, he contented himself with heading them back to billets, with a warning that the village was out of bounds, and then took his own way along the forbidden road in search of pleasure, like a man privileged above his kind.

‘They don’t care a fuck ’ow us’ns live,’ said little Martlow bitterly. ‘We’re just ’umped an’ bumped an’ buggered about all over fuckin’ France, while them as made the war sit at ’ome waggin’ their bloody chins, an’ sayin’ what they’d ’ave done if they was twenty years younger. Wish to Christ they was, an’ us’ns might get some leaf an’ go ’ome an’ see our own folk once in a while.’