he wanted to live, to escape from this infernal butchery, to be safe again, gloriously or ingloriously, it mattered not which, to be with Sylvia once more.  He told himself that he had been an utter fool ever to re-enter the army again like this.  He could certainly have got some appointment as dispatch-carrier or had himself attached to the headquarters staff, or even have shuffled out of it altogether. . . .  But, above all, he wanted Sylvia; he wanted to be allowed to lead the ordinary human life, safely and securely, with the girl he loved, and with the musical pursuits that were his passion.  He had hated soldiering in times of peace; he found now that he was terrified of it in times of war.  He felt physically sick, as with cold hands and trembling knees he stood and waited, lighting cigarettes and throwing them away, in front of the kitchen fire, where the stewpot was already bubbling again for those lucky devils who would return here to-night.

The Major of his company was sitting in the window watching him, though Michael was unaware of it.  Suddenly he got up, and came across to the fire, and put his hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t mind it, Comber,” he said quietly.  “We all get a touch of it sometimes.  But you’ll find it will pass all right.  It’s the waiting doing nothing that does it.”

That touched Michael absolutely in the right place.

“Thanks awfully, sir,” he said.

“Not a bit.  But it’s damned beastly while it lasts.  You’ll be all right when we move.  Don’t forget to take your fur coat up if you’ve got one.  We shall have a cold night.”

Just after sunset they set out, marching in the gathering dusk down the road eastwards, where in a mile or two they would strike the huge rabbit warren of trenches that joined the French line to the north and south.  Once or twice they had to open out and go by the margin of the road to let ambulances or commissariat wagon go by, but there was but little traffic here, as the main lines of communication lay on other roads.  High above them, scarcely visible in the dusk, an English aeroplane droned back from its reconnaissance, and once there was the order given to scatter over the fields as a German Taube passed across them.  This caused much laughter and chaff among the men, and Michael heard one say, “Dove they call it, do they?  I’d like to make a pigeon-pie of them doves.”  Soon they scrambled back on to the road again, and the interminable “Tipperary” was resumed, in whistle and song.  Michael remembered how Aunt Barbara had heard it at a music-hall, and had spoken of it as a new and catchy tune which you could carry away with you.  Nowadays, it carried you away.  It had become the audible soul of the British army.