Up there on those downs where there was no one, never had been anybody ever since they were pushed up from the bed of some antediluvian ocean, and covered with short turf, Dormer had one of his rare respites from the War. Briefer perhaps, but more complete than that which he experienced on his rare leaves, he felt for a while the emancipation from his unwilling thraldom. It was the speed of the car that probably induced the feeling. Anyhow, on the level road that runs from Boulogne to Étaples—the ETAPPS of the Army in France—he lost it. Here there was no escaping the everlasting khaki and transport, that State of War into which he had been induced, and out of which he could see no very great possibility of ever emerging. He had no warning of what was to come, and was already well among the hospitals and dumps that extended for miles beside the railway, when a military policeman held up a warning hand.
“What’s the matter, Corporal?”
“I should not go into Etapps this morning, if I were you, sir.”
“Why not?”
The man shifted his glance. He did not like the job evidently.
“Funny goings-on, there, sir.”
“Goings-on, what does that mean?”
Dormer was capable of quite a good rasp of the throat, when required. He had learned it as a Corporal.
“The men are out of ’and, sir!”
“Are they? The A.P.M. will see to that, I suppose.”