“Have you got the paper, Alf?” said Mitchell.
“Yes. You'll find it there at the foot of the bunk. There it is. Won't you sit down, Mitchell?”
“Not to-night,” said Mitchell. “We brought you a bottle of ale. We're just going to turn in.”
And we said “good-night”. “Well,” I said to Mitchell when we got inside, “what do you think of it?”
“I don't think of it at all,” said Mitchell. “Do you mean to say you can't see it now?”
“No, I'm dashed if I can,” I said. “Some of us must be drunk, I think, or getting rats. It's not to be wondered at, and the sooner we get out of this country the better.”
“Well, you must be a fool, Joe,” said Mitchell. “Can't you see? ALF THINKS ALOUD.”
“WHAT?”
“Talks to himself. He was thinking about going back to his sweetheart. Don't you know he's a bit of a ventriloquist?”
Mitchell lay awake a long time, in the position that Alf usually lay in, and thought. Perhaps he thought on the same lines as Alf did that night. But Mitchell did his thinking in silence.