"A good one?" I queried.
"Not 'arf," Bill said. "'E goes round with the motor car that goes to places where soldiers are billeted and gathers up all the ammunition, bully beef tins, tins of biscuits and everything worth anything that's left behind—"
"Bill Teake. Is Bill Teake there?" asked a corporal at the door of the dug-out.
"I'm 'ere, old Sawbones," said Bill, "wot d'ye want me for?"
"It's your turn on sentry," said the corporal.
"Oh! blimey, that's done it!" grumbled Bill. "I feel my tempratoor goin' up again. It's always some damn fatigue or another in this cursed place. I wonder when will I 'ave the luck to go sick again."
CHAPTER XX
The Women of France
Lonely and still the village lies,
The houses asleep and the blinds all drawn.
The road is straight as the bullet flies,
And the east is touched with the tinge of dawn.
Shadowy forms creep through the night,
Where the coal-stacks loom in their ghostly lair;
A sentry's challenge, a spurt of light,
A scream as a woman's soul takes flight
Through the quivering morning air.