"Well, it's like this," said Spud——
"Hold your tongue," snapped the sergeant, and Spud relapsed into silence.
After a moment he turned to me where I sat. "It's not only Germans that I'll look for in the trenches," he said, "when I have my rifle loaded and get close to that sergeant——"
"You'll put a bullet through him"; I said, "just as you vowed you'd do to me some time ago. You were going to put a bullet through the sergeant-major, the company cook, the sanitary inspector, the army tailor and every single man in the regiment. Are you going to destroy the London Irish root and branch?" I asked.
"Well, there's some in it as wants a talking to at times," said Spud. "'Ave yer got a fag to spare?"
Somebody sung a ragtime song, and the cabin took up the chorus. The boys bound for the fields of war were light-hearted and gay. A journey from the Bank to Charing Cross might be undertaken with a more serious air: it looked for all the world as if they were merely out on some night frolic, determined to throw the whole mad vitality of youth into the escapade.
"What will it be like out there?" I asked myself. The war seemed very near now. "What will it be like, but above all, how shall I conduct myself in the trenches? Maybe I shall be afraid—cowardly. But no! If I can't bear the discomforts and terrors which thousands endure daily I'm not much good. But I'll be all right. Vanity will carry me through where courage fails. It would be such a grand thing to become conspicuous by personal daring. Suppose the men were wavering in an attack, and then I rushed out in front and shouted: 'Boys, we've got to get this job through'—But, I'm a fool. Anyhow I'll lie on the floor and have a sleep."
Most of the men were now in a deep slumber. Despite an order against smoking, given a quarter of an hour before, a few of my mates had the "fags" lit, and as the lamps had been turned off the cigarettes glowed red through the gloom. The sleepers lay in every conceivable position, some with faces turned upwards, jaws hanging loosely and tongues stretching over the lower lips; some with knees curled up and heads bent, frozen stiff in the midst of a grotesque movement, some with hands clasped tightly over their breasts and others with their fingers bent as if trying to clutch at something beyond their reach. A few slumbered with their heads on their rifles, more had their heads on the sawdust-covered floor, and these sent the sawdust fluttering whenever they breathed. The atmosphere of the place was close and almost suffocating. Now and again someone coughed and spluttered as if he were going to choke. Perspiration stood out in little beads on the temples of the sleepers, and they turned round from time to time to raise their Balaclava helmets higher over their eyes.
And so the night wore on. What did they dream of lying there? I wondered. Of their journey and the perils that lay before them? Of the glory or the horror of the war? Of their friends whom, perhaps, they would never see again? It was impossible to tell.
For myself I tried not to think too clearly of what I might see to-morrow or the day after. The hour was now past midnight and a new day had come. What did it hold for us all? Nobody knew—I fell asleep.