“Remember those billets near Pop?” asked the Acting-Adjutant. “Lovely home that, wasn’t it?”
The others burst into laughter. “Had you there, Lollie,” chuckled the C.O. “It was a hole, eh?” said the Second, and guffawed again. “D’you remember Madame, and the row she made because my man borrowed her wash-tub for me to bath in,” said the Padre. “And the struggle Lollie had to get a cook-house for the mess, and fed us on cold bully mainly,” said the C.O., still chuckling.
“Yes, now, but just hold on,” said Lollie. “Do any of you recollect anything particular about Blankchester—in England?”
There was silence again. “Didn’t we halt there a night that time we marched from Blank?” said the C.O. hesitatingly. “No, I remember,” said the Padre. “We halted and lunched there. Ha, Red Lion Inn, roses over the porch. Pretty place.” The Second evidently remembered nothing.
“You’re right, sir,” said Lollie. “We halted there a night. The Red Lion village I forget the name of, Padre, though I remember the place. Now, let’s see if a few other places stir your memories.” He went over, slowly and with a pause after each, the names of a number of well-known towns of England and Scotland. The C.O. yawned, and the others looked bored. “What are you getting at, Lollie?” demanded the Acting-Adjutant wearily. Lollie laughed. “Those are ‘home’ towns,” he said, “and they don’t interest you a scrap. But I could go through the list of every town in the North of France and Flanders—Ballieul and Poperinghe, and Bethune and Wipers, and Amiens and Armentières and all the rest—and there isn’t one that doesn’t bring a pleasant little homey thrill to the sound; and not one that hasn’t associations of people or times that you’ll remember to your dying day. Even that rotten billet at Pop you remember and can make jokes and laugh over—as you will for the rest of your lives. It’s all these things that make me say it’s good to be back here—home,” and he stood up from the table.
They all chaffed him again, but a little less briskly and with a doubt evidently dawning in their minds.
Lollie went off to his bed presently, and the others soon followed. The Second and the Padre sat on to finish a final pipe. When the Second went along to the dug-out which Lollie was sharing, he went in very quietly, and found the candle burning by Lollie’s bed and Lollie fast asleep. He was taking his coat off when Lollie stirred and said something indistinctly. “What’s that?” said the Major. “Thought you were asleep.”
“It’s good, O Lord, but it’s good to be home again,” said Lollie sleepily, and muttered again. The Major looked closely at him. “Talking in his sleep again,” he thought. “Poor lad. Funny notion that about back home—here,” and he glanced round the rough earth walls, the truckle bed, the earth floor, and the candle stuck in a bottle. “Home! Good Lord!”
“... So good to be back home,” Lollie went on ... “good to find you here——” The Major “tch-tch-ed” softly between his teeth and stooped to pull his boots off, and the voice went on, evenly again: “That’s the best bit of coming home, all that really makes it home—just being with you again—dearest.” The Major stood erect abruptly. “... Some day we’ll have our own little home ...” and this time at the end of the sentence, clear and distinct, came a girl’s name ... “Maisie.”
With sudden haste the Major jerked off his remaining boot, blew out the light, and tumbled into bed. He caught a last fragment, something about “another kiss, dear,” before he could pull the blankets up and muffle them tight about his ears to shut out what he had neither right nor wish to hear. After that he lay thinking long and staring into the darkness. “So—that’s it. Talked brave enough, too. I was actually believing he meant it, and cursing the old war again, and thinking what a sad pity a fine youngster like that should come to feel a foreign country home. Sad pity, but”—his mind jumped ahead a fortnight to the next Push-to-Be—“I don’t know that it’s not more of a pity as it is, for her, and—him.”