‘Well, we’d better go to kip,’ said the sergeant. ‘I’m glad you’re back, if that’s what you want. All the same you was dam’ lucky. I ’aven’t ’ad enough sleep for a week. It’s cloudin’ over now. We’ll get some rain before mornin’.’

VIII

… ambition,

The soldier’s virtue, rather makes choice of loss

Than gain which darkens him.

SHAKESPEARE

CAPTAIN MALET watched Sergeant Tozer drilling his section on some of the waste land beyond the huts. It had rained a little in the night, and there was no dust. They had been doing some rapid wiring with screw-pickets, but there was not enough material for the work done to provide any test of efficiency. Afterwards, to wake them up, the sergeant gave them a little extended order drill, and Bourne being the last man on the right, the sergeant amused himself by giving the order left wheel repeatedly, so that Bourne sweated at the double for the greater part of that hour. Almost as soon as he dropped into quick march, on coming into line with the pivotal man again, there would be a shrill whistle from the sergeant, who, standing very erect, would sweep his outstretched arm round a quarter of the horizon, and Bourne was at the double again, saying, under his breath and while he had any breath, things that were more sincere than complimentary. Captain Malet completely misunderstood the sergeant’s motives. He had believed him to be a strict, efficient, but kindly instructor, and yet this looked very much like a kind of punishment drill. He struck at a few clods of earth irritably with his great ash stick. He did not like this kind of thing. He waved to the innocent sergeant to halt his men, and advanced on him.

‘The men don’t seem to be working very well this morning, sergeant,’ he said with ominous amiability. ‘They don’t keep a proper interval, and they don’t wheel round evenly. I shall take them myself for a few minutes. You get on the left flank, will you, and let us see if we can’t improve matters a bit.’

Sergeant Tozer was disturbed. He was not quite sure from the start that Captain Malet’s method was the right one, and he became convinced before two minutes had elapsed that it was entirely wrong. Captain Malet gave the order right wheel repeatedly, and Sergeant Tozer was doubling over clods and stubble for all he was worth, while Bourne merely made a right turn, and continued at a leisurely pace in the direction indicated. Bourne realized the significance of the matter immediately, and could with difficulty restrain his laughter. He wished he were on the other flank, and next to the sergeant: it would be worth while doubling if he could only hear what the sergeant must be saying to the circumambient air. The sergeant would see the point, too, and was certainly bursting with a sense of injustice. Probably the men thought nothing more about the matter than that it was rather good fun to see Sergeant Tozer taking quite a lot of unnecessary exercise. At last Captain Malet signalled to retire, thus bringing the men back towards himself; and having halted them, he called up a hot and indignant sergeant to listen to his views on the performance.