It
was seven o'clock in the evening, the hour when candles were stuck in
their cheese sconces and lighted. Cakes of soap and lumps of cheese
are easily scooped out with clasp-knives and make excellent sconces;
we often use them for that purpose in our barn billet. We had been
quite a long time in the place and had grown to like it. But to-morrow
we were leaving.
"Oh, dash the rifle!" said the Jersey boy, getting to his feet and
kicking a bundle of straw across the floor of the barn. "To-morrow (p. 044)
night we'll be in the trenches up in the firing line."
"The slaughter line," somebody remarked in the corner where the
darkness hung heavy. A match was lighted disclosing the speaker's face
and the pipe which he held between his teeth.
"No smoking," yelled a corporal, who had just entered. "You'll burn
the damned place down and get yourself as well as all of us into
trouble."
"Oh blast the barn!" muttered Bill Sykes, a narrow chested Cockney
with a good-humoured face that belied his nickname. "It's only fit for
rats and there's 'nuff of 'em 'ere. I'm goin' to 'ave a fag anyway.
Got me?"
The corporal asked Bill for a cigarette and lit it. "We're all mates
now and we'll make a night of it," he cried. "Damn the barn, there'll
be barns when we're all washed out with Jack Johnsons. What are you
doin', Feelan?"
Feelan, an Irishman with a brogue that could be cut with a knife, laid
down the sword which he was burnishing and glanced at the non-com.
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