Back in a village by La Bassée canal lights shone in the windows of houses and through the chinks of shutters. The poplars which lined the village streets showed black and solitary against the red-brick cottages, their shadows stretched straight along the pavement spreading out to an intricate tracery of tremulous boughs which moved backwards and forwards as the soft night breeze caught them.... The moonlight rippled over the roofs, the walls, and the grey, dusty road; the canal lapped sleepily against its banks; soldiers walked up and down the streets smoking, laughing and chatting; women came out from the cottages bearing pails which they placed under the pumps and filled with water. All was peaceful here, only twice had the village been struck by shells and then the roofs of two houses had been shattered. In twenty-four hours, however, the willing hands of the villagers had made the roofs whole again. In the attic of a dwelling that stood by the riverside, a party of soldiers, three in all, were billeted. The boys were in a gay, good humour, for the day had been pay day and two bottles of champagne had been bought and the second bottle had just been opened. Bowdy Benners was there, sitting on a bundle of straw under the niche in which a candle was placed, surveying the newly-drawn cork with a lazy smile, his hands under his thighs and his short, powerful legs stretched out in front to their fullest extent. He was dressed in shirt, trousers and socks, his braces were tied round his waist, his hairy chest was bare, and his identity disc tied round his massive neck with a piece of twine was almost hidden in the hair. Opposite him sat Harry Bubb, nothing the worse after his tater and vaseline meal. A bright sparkle was in his alert eyes, his legs were crossed and the fingers of his left hand kept strumming idly on the floor. His right hand gripped a mess-tin which he pushed towards the champagne bottle in a slow, guileless manner as if he was doing it knowingly. Flanagan was there, stripped to the waist and rubbing his body with a towel. He had been out through the village and had just come back, sweating profusely. He had eaten at a café round the corner and made a study of "the movements of masticating jaws" as he expressed it. "It's damned interesting to watch people eat," he said. "Some eat slowly as if deliberating whether they should swallow the food or spit it out, some eat quickly, trippingly as it were, and some gorge. Those who eat slowly keep their mouths shut, those who eat quickly show their teeth all the time, and those who gorge simply gorge. We were sitting at a long table and I was at the end of the seat. I had a look along the line of moving jaws rising and falling, at the man next to me having a canter...." "A canter?" queried Bubb. "Yes, a canter round his teeth with his tongue," said Flanagan; "and at the man opposite whose moving jaw shook his ears until I thought they would fall off!"