‘Bourne, you will cease from duty here tonight at six o’clock.’

‘Very good, Sergeant-Major,’ said Bourne briefly; though the dismissal, which he had expected, took him by surprise at that particular moment. Evidently the sergeant-major thought there was some disappointment in his voice, and it roused in him the appetite to rub it in.

‘You are not quite the man for the job,’ he said, with satisfaction.

‘No, Sergeant-Major,’ said Bourne indifferently, and then added, simply as a matter of casual interest: ‘I shall be glad to go back to soldiering again.’

Nothing could have flicked them more acutely on the raw, than the implied distinction between their job and his; and, satisfied with the effect of this counter-thrust, he continued his typing. He had become almost an expert. A moment later the signaller looked up at him, and solemnly winked.

‘’ow d’you feel?’ said Sergeant-Major Robinson when he presented himself at a few minutes after six, pack, rifle and bedding complete.

‘Fat and idle, Sergeant-Major,’ replied Bourne, smiling.

‘We can cure that. You may go to Sergeant Tozer’s ’ut: dare say ’e can make room for you.’

‘’eard you was coming back, at tea-time,’ said little Martlow, as Bourne dumped all his stuff on the ground beside him. ‘We’re not goin’ up the line tonight. First night off we’ve ’ad since we’ve been in this fuckin’ ’ole. What are we goin’ to do about it?’

‘Where’s Shem?’ Bourne asked him.

‘Washin’ ’isself. Let’s go into bloody Mazingarbe an’ ’ave a bon time, the three on us. I’ve got vingt frong an’ a ten-bob note me mother sent me.’

Shem appeared in the doorway.

‘Do you know where the Padre is billeted, Shem? Come and show me the way; and then I want to find Evans. You had better come along, too, Martlow, and we shall make a night of it.’

‘What d’you want Evans for?’ asked Martlow jealously.

‘I want him to buy me some of that champagne, which is “réservée pour les officiers”; as he is the commanding-officer’s servant, they’ll sell it to him without fuss.’

‘Ask Sergeant Tozer to come,’ said Shem. ‘He has been pretty well fed-up lately.’

‘All right, but I must find the Padre first. We shall have plenty of time to look for the sergeant later; or you may go and look for him, while I’m waiting for the Padre.’

They took a short cut behind Headquarter Company’s huts and the orderly-room, coming out in a side street, or rather lane, in which some of the better houses had secluded themselves. Bourne knocked at a door, and Shem and Martlow, having told him they would meet him at an estaminet in the main street a couple of doors away from the corner, went off to look for Sergeant Tozer. No one answered his knock. Then an old woman crossing the yard told him the chaplain was not in, but he would be back later; she was vague when asked how much later. Bourne idled up and down the street, waiting. Presently out of one of the houses came the adjutant. He looked at Bourne as he acknowledged the salute.