Then Burnett and Harry took a working-party together to dig in the gully. Burnett was the senior officer, but left Harry to work all night in the whispering rain of stray bullets, while he sat in an Engineers' dug-out and drank whisky. Harry did not object to this, the absence of Burnett being always congenial to him. But next day there came a complimentary message from the Brigadier about the work of that working-party. Burnett was sent for and warmly praised by the Colonel. Burnett stood smugly and said nothing. Harry, when he heard of it, was furious, and wanted, he said, to 'have a row' with him. What he expected Burnett to say, I don't know; the man could hardly stand before his Colonel and say, 'Sir, Penrose did all the work, I was in the Engineers' dug-out nearly all the time with my friends, and had several drinks.' A row, in any case, would be intolerable in that cramped, intimate existence, and I dissuaded Harry, though I made Egerton have a few words with Burnett on the subject. Harry contented himself with ironic comments on Burnett's 'gallantry' and 'industry,' asking him blandly at meals if he expected to get his promotion over that working-party, and suggesting to Egerton that Burnett should take Harry's next turn of duty 'because he is so good at it.' This made Burnett beautifully angry. But it was bitter badinage, and did not improve the social atmosphere. There were a number of such incidents between the two; they were very petty in themselves, some of them, like a fly, but in their cumulative effect very large and distressing. In many cases there was no verbal engagement, or only an angry, inarticulate mutter. Public, unfettered angers were necessarily avoided. But this pent-up, suppressed condition of the quarrel made it more malignant, like a disease. And it got on Harry's nerves; indeed, it got on mine. It became an active element in that vast complex of irritation and decay which was eating into his young system; it was leagued with the flies, and the dust, and the smells, and the bad food, and the wind, and the harassing shells of the Turks, and the disgustful torment of disease. III