nd a
broken row of tobacco-stained teeth; "we're off for the doin's now."

"Blurry near time too," said a Cockney named Spud Higgles. "I thought
we weren't goin' out at all."

"You'll be there soon enough, my boy," said the sergeant. "It's not
all fun, I'm tellin' you, out yonder. I have a brother----"

"The same bruvver?" asked Spud Higgles.

"What d'ye mean?" inquired the sergeant.

"Ye're always speakin' about that bruvver of yours," said Spud. "'E's
only in Ally Sloper's Cavalry; no man's ever killed in that mob."

"H'm!" snorted the sergeant. "The A.S.C. runs twice as much risk as a
line regiment."

"That's why ye didn't join it then, is it?" asked the Cockney. (p. 016)

"Hold yer beastly tongue!" said the sergeant.

"Well, it's like this," said Spud----

"Hold your tongue," snapped the sergeant, and Spud relapsed into
silence.

After a moment he turned to me where I sat. "It's not only Germans
that I'll look for in the trenches," he said, "when I have my rifle
loaded and get close to that sergeant----"

"You'll put a bullet through him"; I said, "just as you vowed you'd do
to me some time ago. You were going to put a bullet through the
sergeant-major, the company cook, the sanitary inspector, the army
tailor and every single man in the regiment. Are you going to destroy
the London Irish root and branch?" I asked.

"Well, there's some in it as wants a talking to at times," said Spud.
"'Ave yer got a fag to spare?"

Somebody sung a ragtime song, and the cabin took up the chorus. The
boys bound for the fields of war were light-hearted and gay. A journey
from the Bank to Charing Cross might be undertaken with a more serious
air: it looked for all the world as if they were merely out on (p. 017)
some night frolic, determined to throw the whole mad vitality of youth
into the escapade.

"What will it be like out there?" I asked myself. The war seemed very
near now. "What will it be like, but above all, how shall I conduct
myself in the trenches? Maybe I shall be afraid--cowardly. But no! If
I can't bear the discomforts and terrors which thousands endure daily
I'm not much good. But I'll be all right. Vanity will carry me through
where courage fails. It would be such a grand thing to become
conspicuous by personal daring. Suppose the men were wavering in an
attack, and then I rushed out in front and shouted: 'Boys, we've got
to get this job through'--But, I'm a fool. Anyhow I'll lie on the
floo