The four days passed very quickly. They paraded in the morning, did a little drill, played football or ran in the afternoons, and went to the estaminets in the evening. Winterbourne treated his section to beer, and drank half a bottle of Barsac himself. The men, all beer and spirit drinkers, despised the finer flavour of French wines and called them “vinegar.” After dark, they sneaked out and stole sandbags of “boulets”—coal-dust made into large pellets with tar—and burned them in a brazier to warm the chilly barn. Winterbourne protested against this thievery. But since the others went anyhow and he benefited by the theft, he thought he might as well share the crime too. True, it was French government property; and nobody minds stealing from governments. But still, he hated to be a thief. The men called it “scrounging.” Under pressure of necessity, every man in the line became a more or less unscrupulous scrounger. On the third night Winterbourne “clicked unlucky.” He was on Gas and Fire Picket. They sat all night round the Company Field Kitchen and drank tea, while one man was always on guard. The tin hat and the fixed bayonet were unwelcome reminders that they were soon returning to the line. The men talked of their homes in England, wished the war would end, hoped anyway they’d get leave or a blighty soon, and envied the officers sleeping in beds. One man grumbled because there was no “red lamp” in the village. Winterbourne felt glad there wasn’t. Not that he would have been tempted, for he was quite fiercely chaste unless in love, but he hated the thought of these men giving their lean, sinewy bodies to the miserable French whores in the war-area bawdy houses. “It’s all right in Béthune,” said the grumbler. “You can see ’em lining up outside the red lamps after dark under a Sergeant. Soon’s the old woman gives the signal, the Ser’ant says: ‘Next two files, right turn, quick march,’ and in yer go. The ole woman ’as a short-arm inspection and gives yer Condy’s Fluid, and the tart ’as Condy’s Fluid too. She was a nice tart, she was, but she was in a ’ell of a ’urry. She kep’ sayin’ ‘’Urry, daypaychez.’ I ’adn’t got meself buttoned up afore I ’eard the Ser’ant shoutin’: ‘Next two files, right turn, quick march.’ But she was a nice tart, she was.” Winterbourne got up and walked out to the muddy road. The stars were faint and dim and lovely in the soft misty night sky; there seemed to be a first quiver of Spring in the scentless pure air. O Andromeda, O Paphian! At dawn the birds twittered and sang, a little hesitantly in the cold morning mist. The sun rose in a golden haze, behind rows of poplars, over the flat dark earth. * * * * *