ets?" said somebody in the darkness. "Billets, I hope. It would be
heaven to sleep in a bed again with soft pillows, and to make the
housewife clean one's things, and kick her if she did not do them
properly."

Everyone watched the lights with keen interest, but to their
disappointment they passed away behind. The train went swaying and
clinking on; and when it reached its destination at last, there was
nothing to be seen but a wood of tall trees topping a ridge against the
fitful moonlight.

Somewhere beyond the ridge was the sound of gunfire again, striking
strangely familiar on the ears that had almost lost it at times during
the journey.

"Get out!" shouted the sergeants. "Have you pigs gone to sleep? Fall in
here beside the line!" And, extricating their legs with some difficulty,
they scrambled over the edge of the trucks, dropped down, and sorted
themselves somehow into sections and companies after much bullying and
some blows struck.

Dennis found himself between the repeatedly wounded man and the private
who had been three times to Poland, and presently the battalion was
formed up four deep and marched.

As they swung off it began to rain.

For an hour they continued their route, getting uncomfortably damp
during the process; and then they were halted and told that they might
lie down. Some of the men lit their pipes, and Dennis would have dearly
loved a cigarette; but he was afraid that the odour might betray him, so
he contented himself with curling up between his two new acquaintances
and went to sleep.

He had no plans; everything must depend upon chance and what the
daylight showed him; and when the man on his right shook him and he rose
to his feet, he saw that they were on the bank of a navigation canal.

Behind them the mist was curling from the water meadows of Picardy, and
along the river tall poplars lifted their heads above the fog.

"Do you know what we are going to do, Kamerad?" he said to the
much-wounded man.

"Die, I hope," was the response.

Circumstances had not unnaturally made him a pessimist.

The roll was being called, but the fog was so thick that one could
hardly see the sergeant and his notebook; and keeping his lips tight,
Dennis was overlooked, and nobody noticed it.

It so happened that the real Carl Heft belonged to another company, and
was marked absent on duty at Divisional Headquarters.

There was a bread distribution, and Dennis got his share. It was black,
bu