“But how the devil did you get into the prison-camps?” asked Lodden.
“As a priest,” said Francis simply, “an Austrian priest. That was my last trip. I’m not going back again if I can help it.”
“I should think not,” from Torrington, “you must have been scared stiff.”
“Scared. Lord, I should think so. But the worst moment I ever had was in the Winter Garden at Berlin. You don’t know it of course. It’s a kind of theatre with stalls in front, and behind—on a big raised daïs—tables for dinner-parties. I was in the promenade, right at the back. And they sang their old Hymn of Hate. Phew! It made me sweat, absolutely sweat with funk. Five thousand of them—on their feet—roaring like, like hyenas. . . .”
At half-past ten, the party broke up; Lodden, and Torrington (who had refused to desert his battery dug-out for a comfortable room at Headquarters) returning across the fields to their gun-pits: Purves, the Doctor and Morency retiring to bed.
“Do you mind if Peter drives home with me, sir?” asked Francis, “I’ll send him back in the car.”
“All right,”—the little red-headed soldier looked up from his newspaper—“I’ll hold the fort till my Adjutant comes back.”
The two cousins strolled out, found the car waiting. “All quiet on the Beuvry road?” asked Francis of the chauffeur.
“There were a few shells while you were at dinner, sir.”
“Well, don’t switch on your headlights till we’re through Beuvry.”