We were just in time for tea—a stroke of luck—with a company of boys (all Kitchener lads from the Civil Service) who were spending the night here. They had made a fire behind a screen to give them a little comfort and frighten off the ghosts, and gossiped with a queer sense of humor, cynical and blasphemous, but even through their jokes there was a yearning for the end of a business which was too close to death.
I remember the gist of their conversation, which was partly devised for my benefit. One boy declared that he was sick of the whole business.
“I should like to cancel my contract,” he remarked.
“Yes, send in your resignation, old lad,” said another, with ironical laughter.
“They'd consider it, wouldn't they? P'raps offer a rise in wages—I don't think!”
Another boy said, “I am a citizen of no mean Empire, but what the hell is the Empire going to do for me when the next shell blows off both my bleeding legs?”
This remark was also received by a gust of subdued laughter, silenced for a moment by a roar and upheaval of masonry somewhere by the ruins of the Cloth Hall.
“Soldiers are prisoners,” said a boy without any trace of humor. “You're lagged, and you can't escape. A 'blighty' is the best luck you can hope for.”
“I don't want to kill Germans,” said a fellow with a superior accent. “I've no personal quarrel against them; and, anyhow, I don't like butcher's work.”
“Christian service, that's what the padre calls it. I wonder if Christ would have stuck a bayonet into a German stomach—a German with his hands up. That's what we're asked to do.”