Behind the Lines by W. F.; Morris Page A

among themselves and matches with the other batteries of the brigade; and several villagers gathered in the dusk outside the billets to listen to the harmonized sentimental songs of the contented men within.
    Rawley alone was uneasy. He asked himself irritably why he could not enjoy this spell out of the Line without bothering about Rumbald. But everything the fellow did irritated him, and justifiably surely. They had been playing vingt-et-un one evening, Rawley, Whedbee, Piddock, and Rumbald, in the little farmhouse mess-room. Rumbald sat with his back to the old-fashioned mantelpiece on which stood a mirror overmantel. He had been losing, and Whedbee who sat opposite him had been winning. Suddenly, with an exclamation, Rumbald had jumped up from his chair and covered the mirror behind him with a newspaper. Whedbee had merely lowered his head and peered over his glasses at Rumbald’s fat hands tucking the edges of the newspaper behind the mirror, and Piddock had contented himself with asking Rumbald sarcastically whether he was expecting the sweep, but Rawley refrained only with difficulty from an outburst at this gratuitous insult.
    And there had been the incident of Sergeant Cooper’s billet. Sergeant Cooper was a little inclined to be familiar with the men, and in consequence the discipline of hissection was a shade below the high standard maintained by the other sections. His billet was a small wood shed, opening off the archway that gave entrance to the farm courtyard on the other side of which the section were billeted. The shed, separated only by a rough wooden partition from the cart-shed beside it, was not more than eight feet long by six feet broad, but a bed composed of a rough wooden frame covered with wire netting had been fitted along one wall and made it a comfortable billet for one man.
    As orderly officer Rawley had turned in one night under the archway with Sergeant Jameson to see that lights were out in the men’s billets. A streak of light and the sound of a voice came from Sergeant Cooper’s door which was ajar, and as they passed it Rawley distinguished the concluding words of a story Penhurst had told that evening in Amiens.
    He hesitated at the sound of the laugh which followed the words, and Sergeant Jameson halted regimentally beside him. He hesitated a moment longer and then stepped to the door and flung it open. The little shed was lighted by two candles stuck in cigarette tins nailed to the wooden partition, and on the low, brown-blanket covered bunk sat Rumbald and Sergeant Cooper. Rumbald’s cap was on the back of his head, and he was dressed in the khaki slacks and shoes that were worn in the mess back in billets. A half-burnt cigar was in his mouth, and he held an enamel mug in his hand. The collar and top buttons of Sergeant Cooper’s tunic were undone, exposing the greyback armyshirt and the brown and green identity disc hanging by a greasy cord round his neck. A chipped enamel mug rested on his knee. At the sight of Rawley with Sergeant Jameson standing rigid and sphinx-like beside him, he rose quickly to attention and fumbled to do up the buttons of his tunic. There was a half-guilty; embarrassed look in his eyes.
    Rumbald, lounging on the wire-netting bunk, cried heartily, “Hullo, Pete!”
    Rawley nodded. His eyes encountered those of Sergeant Jameson fixed enigmatically on his. He hesitated a moment, and then stepped back and closed the door. Followed by Sergeant Jameson he walked in moody silence round the midden to the men’s billet. “So that was it,” he mused. “Drinking and telling dirty stories with an N.C.O. in his bunk! A little of that sort of thing would play old Harry with the discipline of the battery.”

CHAPTER VII
    I
    At exercise one morning as the long column of horses filed back along the road to the village, Piddock clattered up beside Rawley. “I say, Rawley,” he began, “can’t we commandeer a car