'int," said my mate. "Story tellin's a dry fatigue.
Well as I was sayin' my socks 'ad been on for a 'ole month----"

"Three weeks," I corrected.

"Three weeks," Bill repeated and continued. "I took orf my boots.
'Respirators!' the Germans yelled the minute my socks were bare, and
off they went leavin' me there with my 'ome-made trench. When I came
back I got a dose of C.B. as I've told you before."

We went back to our billet. In the farmyard the pigs were busy on the
midden, and they looked at us with curious expressive eyes that peered
roguishly out from under their heavy hanging cabbage-leaves of ears.
In one corner was the field-cooker. The cooks were busy making dixies
of bully beef stew. Their clothes were dirty and greasy, so were their
arms, bare from the shoulders almost, and taut with muscles. (p. 221)
Through a path that wound amongst a medley of agricultural instruments,
ploughs harrows and grubbers, the farmer's daughter came striding like
a ploughman, two children hanging on to her apron strings. A stretcher
leant against our water-cart, and dried clots of blood were on its
shafts. The farmer's dog lay panting on the midden, his red tongue
hanging out and saliva dropping on the dung, overhead the swallows
were swooping and flying in under the eaves where now and again they
nested for a moment before getting up to resume their exhilirating
flight. A dirty barefooted boy came in through the large entrance-gate
leading a pair of sleepy cows with heavy udders which shook backwards
and forwards as they walked. The horns of one cow were twisted, the
end of one pointed up, the end of the other pointed down.

One of Section 4's boys was looking at the cow.

"The ole geeser's 'andlebars is twisted," said Bill, addressing nobody
in particular and alluding to the cow.

"It's 'orns, yer fool!" said Section 4.

"Yer fool, yerself!" said Bill. "I'm not as big a fool as I look----"

"Git! Your no more brains than a 'en." (p. 222)

"Nor 'ave you either," said Bill.

"I've twice as many brains, as you," said Section 4.

"So 'ave I," was the answer made by Bill; then getting pugilistic he
thundered out: "I'll give yer one on the moosh."

"Will yer?" said Section 4.

"Straight I will. Give you one across your ugly phiz! It looks as if
it had been out all night and some one dancing on it."

Bill took off his cap and flung it on the ground as if it were the
gauntlet of a knigh