Bourne did not move, he lay absolutely still in his blankets, with an emotion so tense that he thought something would snap in him.

VII

’Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable.

SHAKESPEARE

THE colour-sergeant had succeeded in working his ticket, it had gone through, as they phrased it, and he was leaving for home that night. He enhanced his own pleasure by expatiating on the many years of usefulness which still lay in front of his subordinates, a prospect which did not move them in the same way: and his purring satisfaction seemed to make it more difficult for them to find suitable words in which to express their regret at his departure. Congratulations on his release came more readily from their tongues. Bourne said nothing at all; as far as he was concerned in the matter, he was glad the old hypocrite was going; but he couldn’t think of anything except the fate of poor Clinton, who had always been so decent to him. He wanted to see Sergeant Tozer and hear what had happened.

‘I hoped that before I left,’ said the colour-sergeant, dripping with the unction of benevolence, ‘I should see Johnson a corporal, and Bourne with a stripe.’

Bourne, who never believed a word the old man said, looked up at him with startled surprise, which the other probably mistook for credulity, as he continued to purr pleasantly while lacing up his boots. Bourne, having made up his own bed and swept the floor, went outside to wash and shave, and after coming back for his tunic, crossed the road and found Sergeant Tozer.

‘I’m damned sorry about it myself,’ said the sergeant. ‘It was one o’ them sausages; they put wind up me, them things do. You can see the buggers in the air, but you can’t always tell where they’re going to land. All our stuff ’ad to be carried up to the fire-trench, you see, and put in position there, ready. After each pair o’ men ’ad dumped their load, they turned down a short bit of slit trench an’ waited in the trench be’ind where I was. Well, the ’un isn’t much more’n fifty yards away just there, an’ ’e can ’ear a good deal of what’s goin’ on in our trenches, same as we can ’ear a good deal of what’s goin’ on in ’is. We ’eard this bloody thing go up. Two o’ our chaps ’ad just dumped their load an’ turned into the slit, an’ the officer who was takin’ over the stuff went into a small dug-out then to get a chit. We could see the dam’ thing comin’. Mr Clinton an’ a couple o’ their sentries were the only people in the bay, an’ ’e got it proper, ’e did. Fair made me sick when we was puttin’ ’im on a stretcher; an’ all ’e said before they gave ’im morphia an’ took ’im away was: “I knew I’d get it ’ere, I knew.” ’e kep’ on sayin’ it. One o’ the men on the firestep was ’urt too, but they said it was only a nice blighty one. Funny thing, don’t you think, ’im sayin’ ’e knew ’e’d get it ’ere?’