He found Corporal Greenstreet ready, and they set off together; the corporal had collected all the money except from Corporal Farman and Lance-Corporal Eames.

‘What about Corporal Whitfield?’ Bourne asked him.

‘’e’s no bloody good,’ said Greenstreet. ‘’e never will join in with us in anything. Do you know, ’e gets at least one big parcel out from ’ome every week, an’ I’ve never seen ’im give away a bite yet. In any case, ’e’s no good to us. ’e’s a Rechabite.’

‘What the hell is that?’ inquired Bourne, somewhat startled.

‘I don’t know. It’s some kind o’ sex or other, I think. They don’t drink, an’ they don’t smoke either; but you ought to see the bugger eat. ’e’s no bloody good to us.’

‘I don’t know anything about him,’ Bourne explained.

‘No, an’ you don’t want to,’ said Greenstreet earnestly. ‘I’m in the same billets as I was last time, but I ’aven’t ’ad time to look in on ’em yet. An old maid owns the ’ouse, an’ she ’as an ’ousekeeper: cook-’ousekeeper, I should say. They’re very decent to all us. Respectable people, you know; I should say the old girl ’ad quite a bit o’ rattle to ’er. Lives comfortable anyway. Likes you to be quiet an’ wipe your feet on the mat. You know.’

The house was in one of the streets leading off the Place; and it had a gate at the side giving access to a small yard, with a garden, half flowers, half vegetables; there was a tree bright with early red apples, and a pollarded plane with marvellously contorted branches and leaves already yellowing. Corporal Farman was just coming out of the door, as they entered the gate, and he handed over his ten francs cheerfully. He and Corporal Greenstreet were perhaps the two best-looking men in the battalion, fair-haired, blue-eyed and gay-complexioned. The ménagère, recognizing the latter, waved a welcome to him from the doorway.

‘She’s been askin’ about you, Corporal.’

‘Bonjour, Monsieur Greenstreet,’ she cried, rolling each ‘r’ in her throat.

‘Bongjour, madame, be there in ’arf a tick. I’ll meet you up at the company office, Corporal, and show you the billets. Bourne’s runnin’ the show.’

Farman waved a hand, and departed on his own business. Corporal Greenstreet and Bourne went into the house, after using the door-mat rather ostentatiously; but even so the ménagère looked a little suspiciously at Bourne.

‘Vous n’avez pas un logement chez nous, monsieur,’ she said firmly.

‘C’est vrai, madame; mais j’attends les ordres de monsieur le caporal.’

He spoke deliberately, with a little coldness in his manner, de haut en bas, as it were, and after a further penetrating glance in his direction, she ignored him for the moment. Corporal Greenstreet left his pack in a room off the kitchen, but one step higher and with a wooden floor instead of tiled; then he returned, and the woman opened on him rapidly, expressing her pleasure at seeing him, and her further gratification at seeing him so obviously in good health. He did not understand one word of what she said, but the pleasure and recognition in her face flattered him agreeably.