At the café table next them an Englishman was seated with his head sunk on his chest.
"Oh, I say, you woke me up."
"Sorry."
"No harm. Jolly good thing."
They invited him over to their table. There was a moist look about his eyes and a thickness to his voice that denoted alcohol.
"You mustn't mind me. I'm forgetting.... I've been doing it for a week. This is the first leave I've had in eighteen months. You Canadians?"
"No. Ambulance service; Americans."
"New at the game then. You're lucky.... Before I left the front I saw a man tuck a hand-grenade under the pillow of a poor devil of a German prisoner. The prisoner said, 'Thank you.' The grenade blew him to hell! God! Know anywhere you can get whisky in this bloody town?"
"We'll have to hurry; it's near closing-time."
"Right-o."