"He's in love, is he?" said Flanagan. "I mind him at St. Albans; he was in love so often. But none would take him seriously," he said. "Why, I don't know." Bubb, the sentry, came to the door. "'Oo's next on?" he yelled. "Sleepin' there like 'ogs, you is. Get up out't!" "Leave him alone," said Flanagan, alluding to the soldier whom Bubb was endeavouring to rouse up. "I'll do his turn." "Well, blimey, that's a strange caper," said Bubb, as Flanagan disappeared through the door. "One would fink 'e was in love wiv this 'ere caboosh. I know o' one squadder that ain't, that's this 'ere kid. Well, any'ow, I'm goin' to 'ave a kip." Bubb and Bowdy lay down together and dropped off to sleep, listening to the patter of the rain on the roof, while outside on the firestep Flanagan was standing on guard, humming an old Irish song, his heart filled with the joy of a wanderer who has returned to his kind. CHAPTER IX TRENCH FEVER Now out in the trenches you'll find to your cost That the slower you shuffle the sooner you're lost; There are actions done better the quicker they're done, Like getting your rations or bombing a Hun, Or dodging a pip-squeak or catching a flea,-- The quicker you do them the better they be. (_From "Trench Wisdom."_) The Irish were back in the trenches again. It was night; the ground was covered with snow, and Spudhole who did not feel well was glad of an hour's rest in a dug-out. The dug-out belonged at one time to the Germans. It was a spacious apartment stretching out into unfathomable corners. The dry floor was level as a board and all round the walls snug little crannies were scraped out in the clay. Here were stored all manner of odds and ends, bully beef tins, loaves, biscuits, coils of barbed wire, hand grenades, bandoliers, water jars, tins of jam, candles and firewood. A brazier burned on the floor, the smoke curled upwards and was sucked out through a hole in the roof as through a chimney. A dozen men sat around the fire, their sheepskin jackets steaming and the brass buckles of their equipment shining like gold. The blaze, burning high, lit up the steady eyes and ruddied the strong features of the men. Spudhole, half asleep, leant forward over his knees, his arms folded, his shoulders humped up and his helmet well down over his face. Bowdy Benners was writing a letter, his notepaper spread out on Bubb's back, his knees crossed. An old, wrinkled man of forty-eight, named Bill Hurd, was telling how his own son had joined the Army at the outbreak of war. Hurd was an Irishman and had worked as a carpenter on a big estate in Devon, and his son John had a job in his father's workshop.