"In the army in peace time you've nothing to trouble about," he goes on, "your food's found every day, or else you kick up a row; you've a bed, every week clean under-wear like a perfect gent, you do your non-com.'s duty, you have a good suit of clothes; in the evening you're a free man and go off to the pub."
Haie is extraordinarily set on his idea. He's in love with it.
"And when your twelve years are up you get your pension and become a village bobby, and you can walk about the whole day."
He's already sweating on it. "And just you think how you'd be treated. Here a dram, there a pint. Everybody wants to be well in with a bobby."
"You'll never be a non-com. though, Haie," interrupts Kat.
Haie looks at him sadly and is silent. His thoughts still linger over the clear evenings in autumn, the Sundays in the heather, the village bells, the afternoons and evenings with the servant girls, the fried bacon and barley, the care-free evening hours in the ale-house——
He can't part with all these dreams so abruptly; he merely growls: "What silly questions you do ask."
He pulls his shirt over his head and buttons up his tunic.
"What would you do, Tjaden?" asks Kropp.
Tjaden thinks only of one thing. "See to it that Himmelstoss doesn't get past me."