“I was sentry, and you always feel as the place is full of Boshes, and you think you see them and it isn’t them. Then one night after moon-up I thought I saw a Bosh over against the enemy wire, and I said to myself as he wasn’t a Bosh really, though my hair was all standing up on my head. Then he moved and I let fly with my rifle as I’ve done umpty times at nothing, and then he was still and I saw him hanging on the wire. Reckon he was dead, but I went on putting round after round into him I felt so queer—not scared only kind of enjoying it like as if you were shooting at the Fair, only I knew as I was killing something and it made me happy. But afterwards I got very cold and sick.”
“He never tells us how he feels about things,” complained Mrs. Beatup. “It’s never more’n ‘I had my dinner’ to us.”
“Reckon he doan’t git much time for writing letters. He knows as wot he tells me gits passed on to you.”
“Well, I’ll never say naun agaunst you, Thyrza Honey, but I must point out as he knew us afore he knew you. He’s unaccountable young to be shut of his mother, and it ud be praaperer if his messages wur to you through us.”
Mrs. Beatup’s voice was hoarse with dignity, and Thyrza hung her head.
“I’m the last as ud ever want to taake him away from his mother,” she murmured—and ten days later Mrs. Beatup got a thick smudgy letter on which Tom had spent hours of ink and sweat in obedience to Thyrza’s command.
5
About a fortnight later an impudent-looking little girl with a big mouth came wobbling up Worge drive on a bicycle, and from a wallet extracted a telegram which she handed to Zacky, who sat on the doorstep peeling a stick. Zacky ran with it to his mother, who refused to open it.
“I’ll have no truck with telegrams—they’re bad things. Fetch your faather.”