Down the road a couple of sergeants of the West Ridings lean idly over a gate smoking and watching the folk going off to Mass.
Out over the canal line the men are hard at work trench-digging, pausing now and again to look skywards as the drowsy hum of an aeroplane propeller sounds over them. Whether the machine is friend or foe they have no idea.
Three girls saunter down the road, arms round waists, and stop to look with interest and amusement at some of the West Kents washing out their shirts. One of the men is stripped for a wash and Marie exchanges a little repartee with him, to run off laughing as a burly lance-corporal plants a sounding kiss on her cheek, by way of finishing the argument.
So peaceful it all is, with just that under-current of excitement which the presence of strange troops would give. Imagine a Lancashire or Yorkshire village on a summer Sunday morning and you have the picture.
It is now eleven o'clock and the people are streaming home from church. The service seems to have been cut rather shorter than usual and there is just a hint of anxiety to be seen on their faces. What was it the curé had said, something about keeping quietly in their homes and trusting le bon Dieu? But there is no danger, the English are here to protect us. Still, those aeroplanes have an ugly sound, something of un air menaçant.
Another aeroplane—and look, it has a great black cross under the wings! Un Boche? No, it cannot be. Ah, see, see, a French one, ours! It goes to meet it. Mon Dieu! they fight! And dimly from the sunny heaven there falls the crackle of revolvers.
A motor dispatch-rider hurls himself from his machine straight upon the astonished group of West Kents.
"Where's the officer? Get moving; you're wanted up there!" and he jerks a thumb over his shoulder.
The men rush for their kit and rifles. Away to the west there is the crack of an 18-pounder.
Down the street the cyclist pants. A subaltern bursts in on the Sunday dinner of the Bedfords.