``Yes,'' said the Sergeant, ``and beer. And then we used to go home.
It was grand in the evenings. We used to go along a lane that was full
of them wild roses. And then we come to the road where the houses
were. They all had their bit of a garden, every house.''

``Nice, I calls it, a garden,'' the Private said.

``Yes,'' said the Sergeant, ``they all had their garden. It came right
down to the road. Wooden palings: none of that there wire.''

``I hates wire,'' said the Private.

``They didn't have none of it,'' the N. C. O. went on. ``The gardens
came right down to the road, looking lovely. Old Billy Weeks he had
them tall pale-blue flowers in his garden nearly as high as a man.''

``Hollyhocks?'' said the Private.

``No, they wasn't hollyhocks. Lovely they were. We used to stop and
look at them, going by every evening. He had a path up the middle of
his garden paved with red tiles, Billy Weeks had; and these tall blue
flowers growing the whole way along it, both sides like. They was a
wonder. Twenty gardens there must have been, counting them all; but
none to touch Billy Weeks with his pale-blue flowers. There was an old
windmill away to the left. Then there were the swifts sailing by
overhead and screeching: just about as high again as the houses. Lord,
how them birds did fly. And there was the other young fellows, what
were not out walking, standing about by the roadside, just doing
nothing at all. One of them had a flute: Jim Booker, he was. Those
were great days. The bats used to come out, flutter, flutter, flutter;