Andrews followed the recruiting sergeant to a desk in the far corner of the room, from which he could hear more faintly the click, click of the typewriter and the man's voice mumbling angrily. “Forgets to obey orders.... Responds to no form of per... suasion. M-e-m-o-r-y, nil.” “All right. Take this to barracks B.... Fourth building, to the right; shake a leg,” said the recruiting sergeant. Andrews drew a deep breath of the sparkling air outside. He stood irresolutely a moment on the wooden steps of the building looking down the row of hastily constructed barracks. Some were painted green, some were of plain boards, and some were still mere skeletons. Above his head great piled, rose-tinted clouds were moving slowly across the immeasurable free sky. His glance slid down the sky to some tall trees that flamed bright yellow with autumn outside the camp limits, and then to the end of the long street of barracks, where was a picket fence and a sentry walking to and fro, to and fro. His brows contracted for a moment. Then he walked with a sort of swagger towards the fourth building to the right. John Andrews was washing windows. He stood in dirty blue denims at the top of a ladder, smearing with a soapy cloth the small panes of the barrack windows. His nostrils were full of a smell of dust and of the sandy quality of the soap. A little man with one lined greyish-red cheek puffed out by tobacco followed him up also on a ladder, polishing the panes with a dry cloth till they shone and reflected the mottled cloudy sky. Andrews's legs were tired from climbing up and down the ladder, his hands were sore from the grittiness of the soap; as he worked he looked down, without thinking, on rows of cots where the blankets were all folded the same way, on some of which men were sprawled in attitudes of utter relaxation. He kept remarking to himself how strange it was that he was not thinking of anything. In the last few days his mind seemed to have become a hard meaningless core. “How long do we have to do this?” he asked the man who was working with him. The man went on chewing, so that Andrews thought he was not going to answer at all. He was just beginning to speak again when the man, balancing thoughtfully on top of his ladder, drawled out: “Four o'clock.” “We won't finish today then?” The man shook his head and wrinkled his face into a strange spasm as he spat. “Been here long?” “Not so long.” “How long?” “Three months.... Ain't so long.” The man spat again, and climbing down from his ladder waited, leaning against the wall, until Andrews should finish soaping his window. “I'll go crazy if I stay here three months.... I've been here a week,” muttered Andrews between his teeth as he climbed down and moved his ladder to the next window. They both climbed their ladders again in silence. “How's it you're in Casuals?” asked Andrews again. “Ain't got no lungs.” “Why don't they discharge you?” “Reckon they're going to, soon.”