Stoner, brisk as a bell all the morning, suddenly flung down his shovel.
"I'm as hungry as ninety-seven pigs," he said, and pulled a biscuit from his haversack.
"Now I've got 'dog,' who has 'maggot'?"
"Dog and maggot" means biscuit and cheese, but none of us had the latter; cheese was generally flung into the incinerator, where it wasted away in smoke and smell. This happened of course when we were new to the grind of war.
"I've found out something," said Mervin, rubbing the sweat from his forehead and looking over the parapet towards the firing line. A shell whizzed by, and he ducked quickly. We all laughed, the trenches have got a humour peculiarly their own.
"There's a house in front," said Mervin, "where they sell café noir and pain et beurre."
"Git," muttered Bill. "Blimey, there's no one 'ere but fools like ourselves."
"I've just been in the house," said Mervin, who had really been absent for quite half an hour previously. "There are two women there, a mother and daughter. A good-looking girl, Bill." The eyes of the Cockney brightened.
"Twopence a cup for black coffee, and the same for bread and butter."
"No civilians are allowed here," Pryor remarked.