about the month’s holiday he’d had in Wales after he came out of hospital.
When I got back to our tent in the Transport Lines I found everyone in a state of excitement. Dottrell and the ration-party had returned from their all-night pilgrimage with information about yesterday’s attack. The Brigade had reached its first objectives. Two of our officers had been killed and several wounded. Old man Barton had got a nice comfortable one in the shoulder. Hawkes (a reliable and efficient chap who belonged to one of the other Companies) had been sent for to take command of C Company, and was even now completing his rapid but methodical preparations for departure.
The reserve Echelon was an arid and irksome place to be loafing about in. Time hung heavy on our hands and we spent a lot of it lying in the tent on our outspread valises. During the sluggish mid-afternoon of that same Saturday I was thus occupied in economizing my energies. Durley had nicknamed our party “the eight little nigger boys,” and there were now only seven of us. Most of them were feeling more talkative than I was, and it happened that I emerged from a snooze to hear them discussing “that queer bird Cromlech.” Their comments reminded me, not for the first time, of the diversified impressions which David made upon his fellow Fusiliers.
At his best I’d always found him an ideal companion, although his opinions were often disconcerting. But no one was worse than he was at hitting it off with officers who distrusted cleverness and disliked unreserved utterances. In fact he was a positive expert at putting people’s backs up unintentionally. He was with our Second Battalion for a few months before they transferred him to “the First,” and during that period the Colonel was heard to remark that young Cromlech threw his tongue a hell of a lot too much, and that it was about time he gave up reading Shakespeare and took to using soap and water. He had, however, added, “I’m agreeably surprised to find that he isn’t windy in trenches.”