“You have it! He was the complete camouflager all through. That’s him to a dot. Look here! He hadn’t even a nickname in his platoon! And then a friend of mine from our village, of the name of Vigors, came out with a draft. Bert Vigors. As a matter of fact, I was engaged to his sister. And Bert hadn’t been with us a week before they called him ‘The Grief.’ His father was an oldish man, a market-gardener--high-class vegetables, bit o’ glass, an’--an’ all the rest of it. Do you know anything about that particular business?” “Not much, I’m afraid,” said Pole, “except that glass is expensive, and one’s man always sells the cut flowers.” “Then you _do_ know something about it. It is. Bert was the old man’s only son, an’--_I_ don’t blame him--he’d done his damnedest to get exempted--for the sake of the business, you understand. But he caught it all right. The tribunal wasn’t takin’ any the day he went up. Bert was for it, with a few remarks from the patriotic old was-sers on the bench. Our county paper had ’em all.” “That’s the thing that made one really want the Hun in England for a week or two,” said Pole. “_Mwor osee!_ The same tribunal, havin’ copped Bert, gave unconditional exemption to the opposition shop--a man called Margetts, in the market-garden business, which he’d established _since_ the war, with his two sons who, every one in the village knew, had been pushed into the business to save their damned hides. But Margetts had a good lawyer to advise him. The whole case was frank and above-board to a degree--our county paper had it all in too. Agricultural produce--vital necessity; the plough mightier than the sword; an’ those ducks on the bench, who had turned down Bert, noddin’ and smilin’ at Margetts all full of his cabbage and green peas. What happened? The usual. Vigors’ business--he’s sixty-eight, with asthma--goes smash, and Margetts and Co. double theirs. So, then, that was Bert’s grievance, an’ he joined us full of it. That’s why they called him ‘The Grief.’ Knowing the facts, I was with him; but being his sergeant, I had to check him, because grievances are catchin’, and three or four men with ’em make Companies--er--sticky. Luckily Bert wasn’t handy with his pen. He had to cork up his grievance mostly till he came across Hickmot, an’ Gord in Heaven knows what brought those two together. No! _As_ y’were. I’m wrong about God! I always am. It was Sheep. Bert knew’s much about sheep as I do--an’ that’s Canterbury lamb--but he’d let Hickmot talk about ’em for hours, in return for Hickmot listenin’ to his grievance. Hickmot ’ud talk sheep--the one created thing he’d ever open up on--an’ Bert ’ud talk his grievance while they was waiting to go over the top. I’ve heard ’em again an’ again, and, of course, I encouraged ’em. Now, look here! Hickmot hadn’t seen an English house or a field or a road or--or anything any civ’lised man is used to in all his life! Sheep an’