"I've been fighting," said Bowdy. "Had a bit of a row with this man lying here." "'E looks as if 'e's been in the wars," said Snogger, who was leading the search party. "By Gawd, ye 'ave been knockin' 'im about.... I suppose we'll 'ave to carry 'im back." "Do whatever you like with him," said Bowdy. "I'll not be able to help. It'll be as much as I can do to carry myself in." The party got back to the trench an hour later. The sniper was searched and in his pockets was found in addition to other things, his own photograph taken when he had appeared on the English music halls as a professional wrestler. He was carried down to the dressing-station on a stretcher; Bowdy Benners walked down, and both men were treated by the same M.O. A month later Bowdy got a clasp to his D.C.M. CHAPTER XV TATERS AND VASELINE Rations enough to go round; Rations enough to go round; Gawd, it's enough! And it's horrible stuff; But still there's enough to go round. (_From "The Song of the Best Fed Army."_) In the village the houses were fractured by high explosive shells, the windows were paneless and the doors latchless, chimneys had been hurled to the ground and pounded to dust. Now in the Summer it was sad to see the fallen homes of the little people, especially in these days soft with sunshine, glorious days when men whispered to themselves secretly: "How good, how very good it is to be alive." The mad vitality of life exulted itself amidst scenes of demolition and decay; young blood pulsed warmly, the quick walked through the barren streets of the village, young men pleased with their vigour and their calling. Man values existence in haunts where he holds insecure purchase of life. A solitary violet peeped coyly out from between two bricks which topped a heap of rubble by the roadway near the church. The heap of rubble had once been a home. The cataclysm of continents, the hatred of kings, the mustering of armies, the thunder of guns, were all needed in the making of this--a mean little nook on a rubble heap where a modest violet blossomed. Like cats to their accustomed haunts the natives clung to their village and braved danger and death in preference to exile. But now in the day of big things the authorities removed the villagers and sent them back to localities further away from the firing line. The villagers left the place without a moan; placid fatalists who had lived and died midst the thunder of a thousand guns; they accepted the change mutely and left in silence their native place when ordered to do so. They took away much of their portable property and left much of it behind. On the eve of Lammas Day Spudhole Bubb caught two homeless chickens fluttering despairing wings outside the estaminet La Concorde in the village.