“My word, he was in a state of mind, wasn’t he? our Colonel.” Dormer had the clearest possible presentiment that the moment the door closed upon them, the Colonel had said ‘Pan’ in imitation of a cork being snapped into a bottle, and that all the rest of the officers had laughed. So he said: “What on earth is behind all this, Dendrecourt?” “Why, nothing, except the dignity of France.” “The whole job is only worth a pound or two. I’d have paid it out of my own pocket rather than have all this about it.” “Well, of course, you may have enough money to do it, but, my dear Dormer, a few pounds in England is a good many francs in France, not only in exchange value, but in sentiment. Then, no one likes having his grandmother’s tomb broken into----” “I suppose they will get over it, if they are paid enough money,” rejoined Dormer, bitterly, for it was exactly what he had heard before. “Certainly!” replied Dendrecourt, without noticing, “but it is most unfortunate at this moment. There is a religious revival in France. A new Commander-in-Chief and a new spirit, and these insults to the religious sentiment are very trying. Then there is the insult to the Mayor.” “Oh, devil take the Mayor!” The Frenchman shrugged. “The devil has taken all of us, my friend. We are a sacrificed generation. You find the Mayor of Hondebecq annoying. So do I. But not more than everything else. You would not like it if French soldiers laughed at an English Mayor!” “My dear Dendrecourt, in England a Mayor is somebody. Not an old peasant dressed up in a top hat and an apron, all stars and stripes.” “Well, here is lunch!” (He called it lernch.) “I will not join with you, Dormer, in the game of slanging each other’s nationality.” Dormer dismounted and handed over his horse, and went in to lunch, walking wide in the legs and feeling a fool. The only pleasure he had had was the male-game-bird appearance of Colonel Lepage. Of course he said nothing about his morning’s work, and of course Colonel Birchin had forgotten it. At the end of the week the Division moved into the line and he had to go forward with that fellow Kavanagh to check the workings of communications. They were “in” four weeks, and came out in the great cold of January, 1917, and were moved up near to Doullens. They had not been out a week before the Colonel sent for him. He knew what it would be about, but the whole of his mind being occupied with keeping warm, he did not care. They were in huts, on a high plateau. White snow obliterated every colour, softened every outline as far as the eye could reach, except where the road to Arras lay black with its solid ice, the snow that the traffic had trodden into water, refrozen into a long black band, scattered with cinders, gravel, chalk, anything that made it negotiable.