“By Jove, yes!” Jim agreed. “But I don’t mind postponing them if only we get a smack at those gentry across the way first. Did you see Anstruther?”
“Yes—he’s better. He dodged the R.A.M.C. men—said he wasn’t going to be carted back because of a knock on the head. He’s tied up freshly and looks awfully interesting, but he declares he’s quite fit.”
Captain Anstruther was the company commander, a veteran of one-and-twenty, with eight months’ service. The two Australian boys, nineteen and eighteen respectively, and fully conscious of their own limitations, regarded him with great respect in his official capacity, and, off duty, had clearly demonstrated their ability to dispose of him, with the gloves on, within three rounds. They were exceedingly good friends. Anstruther could tell stories of the Marne, of the retreat from Mons, of the amazing tangle of the first weeks of war, which had left him, then a second lieutenant, in sole command of the remnant of his battalion. To the two Australians he was a mine of splendid information. They were mildly puzzled at what he demanded in return—bush “yarns” of their own country, stories of cattle musterings, of aboriginals, of sheep-shearing by machinery, of bush-fire fighting; even of football as played at their school in Melbourne. To them these things, interesting enough in peacetime and in their own setting, were commonplace and stale in the trenches, with Europe ablaze with battle all round them. Anstruther, however, looked on war with an eye that saw little of romance: willing to see it through, but with no illusions as to its attractions. He greatly preferred to talk of bush-fires, which he had not seen.
Yesterday a shell which had wrecked far too much of a section of trench to be at all comfortable had provided this disillusioned warrior with a means of escape, had he so wished, by knocking him senseless, with a severe scalp-wound. Counselled to seek the dressing-station at the rear, when he had recovered his senses, however, he had flatly declined; all his boredom lost in annoyance at his aching head, and a wild desire to obtain enemy scalps in vengeance. Jim and Wally had administered first-aid with field dressings, and the wounded one, declaring himself immediately cured, had hidden himself and his bandages from any intrusive senior who might be hard-hearted enough to insist on his retirement.
“It was a near thing,” Jim said reflectively.
“So was yours,” stated his chum.
“Oh—my old cap?—a miss is as good as a mile,” said Jim. “I’m glad it wasn’t a bit nearer, though; it would be a bore to be put out of business without ever having seen a German, let alone finding out which of us could ‘get his fist in fust.’ ” He rose, feeling for his pipe. “Have you eaten your whack of that stuff?”
“I’ve done my best,” said Wally, displaying the tin, nearly empty. “Can’t manage any more. Let’s have a walk along the trench and see what’s happening.”
“Well, keep your silly head down,” Jim said. “The parapet is getting more and more uneven, and you never remember you’re six feet.”
Wally grinned. Each of the friends suffered under the belief that he was extremely careful and the other destined to sudden death from unwittingly exposing himself to a German sniper.