When the last stray bullet ceased whistling over our heads, and we were well beyond the range of rifle fire, leave to smoke was granted. To most of us it meant permission to smoke openly. Cigarettes had been burned for quite a quarter of an hour before and we had raised them at intervals to our lips, concealing the glow of their lighted ends under our curved fingers. We drew the smoke in swiftly, treasured it lovingly in our mouths for some time then exhaled it slowly and grudgingly.
The sky cleared a little, but at times drifts of grey cloud swept over the moon and blotted out the stars. On either side of the road lone poplars stood up like silent sentinels, immovable, and the soft warm breeze that touched us like a breath shook none of their branches. Here and there lime-washed cottages, roofed with patches of straw where the enemy's shells had dislodged the terra-cotta tiles, showed lights in the windows. The natives had gone away and soldiers were billeted in their places. Marching had made us hot; we perspired freely and the sweat ran down our arms and legs; it trickled down our temples and dropped from our eyebrows to our cheeks.
"Hang on to the step! Quick march! As you were! About turn!" some one shouted imitating our sergeant-major's voice. We had marched in comparative silence up to now, but the mimicked order was like a match applied to a powder magazine. We had had eighteen days in the trenches, we were worn down, very weary and very sick of it all; now we were out and would be out for some days; we were glad, madly glad. All began to make noises at the same time, to sing, to shout, to yell; in the night, on the road with its lines of poplars we became madly delirious, we broke free like a confused torrent from a broken dam. Everybody had something to say or sing, senseless chatter and sentimental songs ran riot; all uttered something for the mere pleasure of utterance; we were out of the trenches and free for the time being from danger.
Stoner marched on my right, hanging on his knees a little, singing a music hall song and smoking. A little flutter of ash fell from his cigarette, which seemed to be stuck to his lower lip as it rose and fell with the notes of the song. When he came to the chorus he looked round as if defying somebody, then raised his right hand over his head and gripping his rifle, held the weapon there until the last word of the chorus trembled on his lips; then he brought it down with the last word and looked round as if to see that everybody was admiring his action. Bill played his Jew's harp, strummed countless sentimental, music-hall ditties on its sensitive tongue, his being was flooded with exuberant song, he was transported by his trumpery toy. Bill lived, his whole person surged with a vitality impossible to stem.
We came in line with a row of cottages, soldiers' billets for the most part, and the boys were not yet in bed. It was a place to sing something great, something in sympathy with our own mood. The song when it came was appropriate, it came from one voice, and hundreds took it up furiously as if they intended to tear it to pieces.
Here we are, here we are, here we are again.
The soldiers not in bed came out to look at us; it made us feel noble; but to me, with that feeling of nobility there came something pathetic, an influence of sorrow that caused my song to dissolve in a vague yearning that still had no separate existence of its own. It was as yet one with the night, with my mood and the whole spin of things. The song rolled on:—
Fit and well and feeling as right as rain,
Now we're all together; never mind the weather,
Since here we are again,
When there's trouble brewing; when there's something doing,
Are we downhearted. No! let them all come!
Here we are, here we are, here we are again!
As the song died away I felt very lonely, a being isolated. True there was a barn with cobwebs on its rafters down the road, a snug farm where they made fresh butter and sold new laid eggs. But there was something in the night, in the ghostly moonshine, in the bushes out in the fields nodding together as if in consultation, in the tall poplars, in the straight road, in the sound of rifle firing to rear and in the song sung by the tired boys coming back from battle, that filled me with infinite pathos and a feeling of being alone in a shelterless world. "Here we are; here we are again." I thought of Mervin, and six others dead, of their white crosses, and I found myself weeping silently like a child....