"Proper cold I've caught comin' over here," he added.
His wife, quite a girl, broad-faced, fresh-coloured, with small grey eyes and a wonderfully placid, comely face, on which a faint shadow seemed printed, sat beside him with the younger baby, a real hairless one, as could be seen when its white knitted cap slipped. The elder baby, perhaps two years old, began whimpering a little. He jigged it gently, and said:
"We 'ad a lot o' trouble wi' this one yesterday. The Doctor didn't think 'er fit to travel; but I got to see the old people down there, before I go back out across. Come over Sunday night—only got a week's leave. So here we are," and he laughed.
"What is your corps?" I asked.
"Engineers."
"Join since the war?"
He looked at me as if to say: What a question!
"Twelve years' service. Been everywhere—India, South Africa, Egypt. Come over to the front from Egypt."
"Where? Ypres?"
"Beg pardon? Wipers? No, Labassy."