‘Are you waiting for anyone?’ he asked.

‘I am waiting to see the chaplain, sir.’

‘He is with the commanding-officer. I do not think he will be long.’

That was encouraging. At last the tall lean figure of the Padre came out. He did not notice Bourne coming down the street, but turned away to go to his own billet, and Bourne followed him, overtaking him before he got to the door. He was surprised when Bourne told him that he was no longer in the orderly-room. There was no difficulty about the cheque, as he had plenty of money, which he needed for the use of the mess, and he was going into Noeux-les-Mines in the morning.

‘Mr Clinton died of wounds this afternoon. Do you know, he told me some days ago he had a feeling that he would be killed if he went into the line here? I think he told me, because in a way he was rather ashamed of it: when he did go up, he went quite cheerfully, as though he had put it out of his mind.’

Bourne shrank from talking about the incident with the Padre, even though the Padre was one of the best. He could only say, in some confusion, how sorry he was: it was odd to think he could speak more frankly about the matter with Sergeant Tozer.

‘I don’t know how you can go on as you are, Bourne,’ said the chaplain, abruptly changing the subject. ‘I suppose even the luckiest of us have a pretty rough time of it out here; but if you were an officer, you might at least have what comfort there is to be found, and you would have a little privacy, and friends of your own kind. I wonder how you stick it. You haven’t anyone whom you could call a friend among these men, have you?’

Bourne paused for quite an appreciable time.

‘No,’ he said, finally. ‘I don’t suppose I have anyone, whom I can call a friend. I like the men, on the whole, and I think they like me. They’re a very decent generous lot, and they have helped me a great deal. I have one or two particular chums, of course; and in some ways, you know, good comradeship takes the place of friendship. It is different: it has its own loyalties and affections; and I am not so sure that it does not rise on occasion to an intensity of feeling which friendship never touches. It may be less in itself, I don’t know, but its opportunity is greater. Friendship implies rather more stable conditions, don’t you think? You have time to choose. Here you can’t choose, or only to a very limited extent. I didn’t think heroism was such a common thing. Oh, it has its degrees, of course. When young Evans heard the Colonel had been left on the wire, he ran back into hell to do what he could for him. Of course he owed a good deal to the Colonel, who thought it a shame to send out a mere boy, and took him on as servant to try and give him a chance. That is rather a special case, but I have seen a man risking himself for another more than once: I don’t say that they would all do it. It seems to be a spontaneous and irreflective action, like the kind of start forward you make instinctively when you see a child playing in a street turn and run suddenly almost under a car. At one moment a particular man may be nothing at all to you, and the next minute you will go through hell for him. No, it is not friendship. The man doesn’t matter so much, it’s a kind of impersonal emotion, a kind of enthusiasm, in the old sense of the word. Of course one is keyed-up, a bit over-wrought. We help each other. What is one man’s fate today, may be another’s tomorrow. We are all in it up to the neck together, and we know it.’