Chrisfield took the cigarette, that had gone out half-smoked, from his mouth and spat savagely at the heels of the man in front of him. “This ain't no life for a white man,” he said. “I'd rather be this than... than that,” said Andrews bitterly. He tossed his head in the direction of a staff car full of officers that was stalled at the side of the road. They were drinking something out of a thermos bottle that they passed round with the air of Sunday excursionists. They waved, with a conscious relaxation of discipline, at the men as they passed. One, a little lieutenant with a black mustache with pointed ends, kept crying: “They're running like rabbits, fellers; they're running like rabbits.” A wavering half-cheer would come from the column now and then where it was passing the staff car. The big gun fired again. Chrisfield was near it this time and felt the concussion like a blow in the head. “Some baby,” said the man behind him. Someone was singing: “Good morning, mister Zip Zip Zip, With your hair cut just as short as, With your hair cut just as short as, With your hair cut just as short as mi-ine.” Everybody took it up. Their steps rang in rhythm in the paved street that zigzagged among the smashed houses of the village. Ambulances passed them, big trucks full of huddled men with grey faces, from which came a smell of sweat and blood and carbolic. Somebody went on: “O ashes to ashes An' dust to dust...” “Can that,” cried Judkins, “it ain't lucky.” But everybody had taken up the song. Chrisfield noticed that Andrews's eyes were sparkling. “If he ain't the damnedest,” he thought to himself. But he shouted at the top of his lungs with the rest: “O ashes to ashes An' dust to dust; If the gasbombs don't get yer The eighty-eights must.” They were climbing the hill again. The road was worn into deep ruts and there were many shell holes, full of muddy water, into which their feet slipped. The woods began, a shattered skeleton of woods, full of old artillery emplacements and dugouts, where torn camouflage fluttered from splintered trees. The ground and the road were littered with tin cans and brass shell-cases. Along both sides of the road the trees were festooned, as with creepers, with strand upon strand of telephone wire. When next they stopped Chrisfield was on the crest of the hill beside a battery of French seventy-fives. He looked curiously at the Frenchmen, who sat about on logs in their pink and blue shirtsleeves playing cards and smoking. Their gestures irritated him. “Say, tell 'em we're advancin',” he said to Andrews. “Are we?” said Andrews. “All right.... Dites-donc, les Boches courent-ils comme des lapins?” he shouted. One of the men turned his head and laughed.