It took all the bishop's tact and enthusiasm to modify their obvious antagonism.
"I ain't a-goin' to trust anythink o' mine in a rusty old thing like that," said a fat woman with a grimy skin and scanty hair.
"Same 'ere, they didn't ought to 'ave let us come down without making proper pervision," complained a second, seizing an opportunity when the bishop's head was in the stoke-hole to utter the heresy.
"Bless me!" he said, withdrawing his head, unconscious that there was a black smudge on the right episcopal cheek. "It will take a dreadful lot of fuel. Now, who will volunteer to stoke?" turning his most persuasive smile upon the group of men, who had been keenly interested in his examination of the contrivance.
The men shuffled their feet, looked at one another, as if each expected to find in another the spirit of sacrifice lacking in himself.
Their disinclination was so marked that the bishop's face fell, until he suddenly caught sight of Bindle approaching.
"Ah!" he cried. "Here's the man I want. Now, Bindle," he called out, "you saved us from the bull, how would you like to become stoker?"
"Surely I ain't as bad as all that, sir," grinned Bindle.
"I'm not speaking professionally," laughed the bishop, who had already ingratiated himself with the men because he did not "talk like a ruddy parson." "I want somebody to take charge of this field-kitchen," he continued. "I'd do it myself, only I've got such a lot of other things to see to. I'll borrow some coal from Mr. Timkins."
Bindle gazed dubiously at the unattractive mass of iron, dabbed with the weather-worn greens and browns of camouflage and war.