I passed the port round again. ‘It’s only a fortnight since we celebrated the battery’s first birthday,’ I said, ‘but to-day the Royal Regiment of Artillery is two hundred years old. Let’s drink its health.’
And we did.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] A certain number of batteries.
THE REHABILITATION OF PRIVATE HAGAN.
BY ‘MAJOR, R.A.M.C.’
Private Timothy Hagan, of ‘D’ Company, extracted a box of matches from his pocket, mechanically lighted a seasoned briar pipe, and sought inspiration from the log roof of the dugout.
The last of the enemy’s usual evening salvo of shells screamed above the tree-tops and burst harmlessly in a stubble field. Hagan did not move. The announcement that the evening meal was ready equally failed to interest him.
The dugout, efficiently constructed of sand-bags, logs, and earth, was just large enough for the accommodation of two improvised beds and blankets. Private Sawyer, the normal occupant of the other half, was at the moment busy in the kitchen outside beneath the trees. It was seclusion that Hagan courted, not protection.
Presently, Sawyer, his face smoke-begrimed and heated, thrust his head over a sand-bag parapet.