There was another roar of laughter. Those boys of the South Saxons were full of spirit. In their yokel way they were disguising their real thoughts⁠—their fear of being afraid, their hatred of the thought of death⁠—very close to them now⁠—and their sense of strangeness in this scene on the edge of Armentières, a world away from their old life.

The colonel sat in a little room at headquarters, a bronzed man with a grizzled mustache and light-blue eyes, with a fine tenderness in his smile.

“These boys of mine are all right,” he said. “They’re dear fellows, and ready for anything. Of course, it was anxious work at first, but my N.C.O. ’s are a first-class lot, and we’re ready for business.”