‘I don’t know,’ answered Bourne; ‘most of us have premonitions of the kind now and again, but they don’t always prove right.’

‘I’ve got a kind of fancy I’m goin’ to come through it all,’ said the sergeant. ‘D’you know what I couldn’t ’elp thinkin’ about Mr Clinton? Well, ’e looked as though, now ’e knew, it didn’t matter, it was all right. Of course, you could see ’e was in pain, until they gave ’im the morphia; an’ ’e moaned a bit, an’ you could see ’e was tryin’ not to moan. I don’t know what it was, but ’is face ’ad changed some’ow; it didn’t ’ave that kind of sulky worried look any more. ’e knew ’is number was up all right.’

‘It was rotten bad luck, after coming through the Somme without a scratch,’ said Bourne. ‘I’m awfully sorry about him. Every time I was with him something funny would happen, and he was such a good sort. And he was always decent to the men, didn’t lose his temper because he had got wind up or was beaten to the wide; he seemed to humour them and master them at the same time. He had such a clear low voice, did you ever notice it? He didn’t have to shout to make himself heard.’

‘Oh, the men all liked ’im,’ agreed the sergeant. ‘You can’t fool the men. You will get an officer sometimes full of shout an’ swank, an’ ’e’ll put ’em through it, an’ strafe ’em, an’ then walk off parade feelin’ that ’e ’as put the fear o’ God into ’em. Well, ’e ’asn’t. ’e thinks they respect ’im, an’ all they think is that ’e wears a Sam Browne belt, and they wear one waist, web, ditto. Men don’t mind a bit o’ chatter. ’e were a nice chap, were Mr Clinton, an’ we all liked ’im.

‘You know, to my way o’ thinkin’ some of us ’ns ’ave a dam’ sight more religion than some o’ the parsons who preach at us. We’re willin’ to take a chance, we are. ’uman nature’s ’uman nature, an’ you may be right or you may be wrong, but if you bloody well think you’re right, you may as well get on with it. What does it matter if y’are killed? You’ve got to die some day. You’ve got to chance your arm in this life, an’ a dam’ sight more ’n your arm too sometimes. Some folk talk a lot about war bein’ such a bloody waste; but I’m not so sure it’s such a bloody waste after all. They think it’s all about nothin’, I suppose. Take some o’ the men comin’ out now. I don’t mean the kids, but some o’ the older men, who wouldn’t join up till they was pushed. Those are the kind o’ chaps who talk about what a bloody waste of life war is. They say there oughtn’t to be no war, as though that ’elped matters. But when you send ’em over the top with a rifle, an’ a bayonet, an’ a few bombs, an’ they find a big buck ’un in front o’ them, they don’t care a fuck about wastin’ the other bugger’s life, do they? Not a bit of it; it’s their own bloody skins they think about, then. That’s what they call their principle. ’arf o’ them snivellin’ conshies at ’ome ’d fight like rats if they was cornered. It’s ’uman nature. You can make nearly any bloody coward fight if you tease ’im into the right ’umour. But what about us? Who ’as the better principle? Do they think we came out for seven bloody bob a week? I’m not troublin’ about my bloody conscience. I’ve got some self-respect, I ’ave.’