amused them. One of the officers laughed boyishly, turned away and
walked slowly back across the parade ground. The other, who was
the lieutenant, came towards them smiling. As he approached his
company, the smile left his lips and he advanced his chin, walking
with heavy precise steps.

"Sergeant, you may dismiss the company." The lieutenant's voice
was pitched in a hard staccato.

The sergeant's hand snapped up to salute like a block signal.
"Companee dis...missed," he rang out.

The row of men in khaki became a crowd of various individuals with
dusty boots and dusty faces. Ten minutes later they lined up and
marched in a column of fours to mess. A few red filaments of
electric lights gave a dusty glow in the brownish obscurity where
the long tables and benches and the board floors had a faint smell
of garbage mingled with the smell of the disinfectant the tables
had been washed off with after the last meal. The men, holding
their oval mess kits in front of them, filed by the great tin
buckets at the door, out of which meat and potatoes were splashed
into each plate by a sweating K.P. in blue denims.

"Don't look so bad tonight," said Fuselli to the man opposite him
as he hitched his sleeves up at the wrists and leaned over his
steaming food. He was sturdy, with curly hair and full vigorous
lips that he smacked hungrily as he ate.

"It ain't," said the pink flaxen-haired youth opposite him, who
wore his broad-brimmed hat on the side of his head with a certain