Capt’n ’e says, ‘Fetch me some straw, Hunt.’  ‘Twere a kind o’ farmhouse and I went out into the backside and vetched some.  And Capt’n and us put a lot of it at top of steps and pushed a lot more vurther down, using our rifles like pitchforks and then ’e blew on his tinder and set it alight.  ‘Stand back, men,’ he says, ’and be ready for ’em with the bay’net.’  ‘Tweren’t no manner o’ use shooting; ’twere too close in there and our bullets might ha’ ricochayed.  We soon ’eerd ’em a-coughing.  There wur a terrible deal o’ smoke, and there wur we a-waiting at top of them stairs for ’em to come up like rats out of a hole.  And two on ’em made a rush for it and we caught ’em just like’s we was terriers by an oat-rick; we had to be main quick.  ’Twere like pitching hay.  And then three more, and then more.  And none on us uttered a word.

“An’ when it wur done and we had claned our bay’nets in the straw, Capt’n ’e said, ‘Men, you ha’ done your work as you ought to ha’ done.’”

He paused for a moment.  “They be bad fellows,” he mused.  “O Christ! they be rotten bad.  Twoads they be!  I never reckon no good ’ull come to men what abuses wimmen and childern.  But I’m afeard they be nation strong—­there be so many on ’em.”

His tale had the simplicity of an epic.  But the telling of it had been too much for him.  Beads of perspiration glistened on his brow.  I felt it was time for me to go.  I sought first to draw his mind away from the contemplation of these tragic things.

“Are you married?” I asked.  The eyes brightened in the flushed face.  “Yes, that I be, and I ’ave a little boy, he be a sprack little chap.”

“And what are you going to make of him?”

“I’m gwine to bring un up to be a soldjer,” he said solemnly.  “To fight them Germans,” he added.  He saw the great War in an endless perspective of time; for him it had no end.  “You will soon be home in Wiltshire again,” I said encouragingly.  He mused.  “Reckon the Sweet Williams ’ull be out in the garden now; they do smell oncommon sweet.  And mother-o’-thousands on the wall.  Oh-h-h.”  A spasm of pain contracted his face.  The nurse was hovering near and I saw my time was up.  “My dear fellow,” I said lamely, “I fear you are in great pain.”

“Ah!” he said, “but it wur worth it.”

* * * * *

The next day I called to have news of him.  The bed was empty.  He was dead.

FOOTNOTE: 

[6] This story is here given as nearly as possible in the exact words of the narrator.—­J.H.M.

IV

THE BASE

If G.H.Q. is the brain of the Army, the Base is as certainly its heart.  For hence all the arteries of that organism draw their life, and on the systole and diastole of the Base, on the contractions and dilatations of its auricles and ventricles, the Army depends for its circulation.  To and from the Base come and go in endless tributaries men, horses, supplies, and ordnance.