d'yer let 'em swing it on yer? It's yer own bleed'n' fault! D'yer
think I'm goin' ter stand over yer all day? Some o' you blokes is as
'elpless as a lot o' kids--yer want a wet nurse to look arter yer!"

"That's what _you're_ there for, to look after us!"

"Don't bloody well tell me what I'm there for! I know me job an' don't
want no tellin'. Get stuck into it an' don't let me 'ave any o' yer
bloody lip, else yer'll be up fur orderly room--I shan't give yer
another warnin'!"

Seeing that argument was useless, we walked away and crossed the railway
lines. My partner growled: "I 'ope I meet 'im in civvy life--I'll give
'im somethin' ter think about--I've seen better things'n what 'e is
crorlin' about in cheese!"

There were fifty or sixty sleepers left. We dawdled on our way back,
hoping that there would be enough men in front of us to clear the lot.
The officer shouted: "Come along, my lads, sharp's the word and quick's
the action! You'll be finished in a few minutes."

The khaki-clad flock straggled forward. The remaining sleepers were
loaded on to our shoulders--my partner and I received the last one. As
we carried it off a cheer was raised by the other men.

At last the whistle blew and we fell in. The sky was still covered with
dark, heavy clouds, but the snow had ceased to fall and the wind had
dropped. We could see the dreary landscape a little better now. The
railway lines curved away until, in the far distance, they ran into a
ghostly procession of tall, slim poplars that filed across the dim
horizon and marked the passage of a main road. On one side of the lines
long rows of dark squares in the snow showed where the sleepers had lain
before we moved them. A brown stretch of churned and trodden mud and
water connected them with the new stacks that extended in four rows
along the other side of the lines. We had shifted five thousand eight
hundred sleepers in all. Around us were level, snow-covered fields
unrelieved by anything except an occasional tree and the farm. It
consisted of three buildings, a house and two big barns, forming three
sides of a square. The cottage had a low, thatched roof, dirty,
whitewashed walls, and green shutters. In the middle of the square was a
huge muck heap, covered with patches of melting snow. A pig was pushing
its snout into it here and there and grunting from time to time. There
was no other sign of life anywhere. A dreary, depressing landscape!

"Remember Belgium!" said