"Would they swear when making a charge?" I inquired.
"They wouldn't beat us at that," said Bill.
"The holy line would go praying down to die," parodied Pryor, and added: "A chaplain may be a good fellow, you know."
"It's a woman's job," said Bill Teake. "Blimey! s'pose women did come out 'ere to comfort us, I wouldn't 'arf go mad with joy. I'd give my last fag, I'd give—oh! anything to see the face of an English girl now.... They say in the papers that hactresses come out 'ere. We've never seen one, 'ave we?"
"Actresses never come out here," said Pryor. "They give a performance miles back to the R.A.M.C., Army Service Corps, and Mechanical Transport men, but for us poor devils in the trenches there is nothing at all, not even decent pay."
"Wot's the reason that the more danger men go into the less their pay?" asked Teake. "The further a man's back from the trenches the more 'e gets."
"Mechanical Transport drivers have a trade that takes a long apprenticeship," said Pryor. "Years perhaps——"
"'Aven't we a trade, too?" asked Bill. "A damned dangerous trade, the most dangerous in the world?"
"What's this?" I asked, peeping over the parados to the road in our rear. "My God! there's a transport wagon going along the road!"
"Blimey! you're sprucing," said Bill, peeping over; then his eye fell on a wagon drawn by two mules going along the highway. "Oh, the damned fools, goin' up that way. They'll not get far."