``They had the idea somehow that the women thought more of their own
man and their children and the washing and what-not; and that the deep
woods and the great hills beyond, and the plowing and the harvest and
snaring rabbits in winter and the sports in the village in summer, and
the hundred things that pass the time of one generation in an old, old
place like Daleswood, meant less to them than the men. Anyhow they did
not quite seem to trust them with the past.

``The youngest of them was only just eighteen. That was Dick. They
told him to get out and put his hands up and be quick getting across,
as soon as they had told him one or two things about the old time in
Daleswood that a youngster like him wouldn't know.

``Well, Dick said he wasn't going, and was making trouble about it, so
they told Fred to go. Back, they told him, was best, and come up
behind the Boche with his hands up; they would be less likely to shoot
when it was back towards their own supports.

``Fred wouldn't go, and so on with the rest. Well, they didn't waste
time quarrelling, time being scarce, and they said what was to be
done? There was chalk where they were, low down in the trench, a
little brown clay on the top of it. There was a great block of it
loose near a shelter. They said they would carve with their knives on
the big bowlder of chalk all that they knew about Daleswood. They
would write where it was and just what it was like, and they would
write something of all those little things that pass with a
generation. They reckoned on having the time for it. It would take a
direct hit with something large, what they call big stuff, to do any
harm to that bowlder. They had no confidence in paper, it got so