Part 6

I did not move.

"D'you refuse to obey the order? Get back at once, or I'll have you put under arrest."

I turned away and the blood rushed into my face with vexation. I even forgot my numb feet in thinking of the long dreary day before me, with no one to talk to.

"Corporal Locke's party!"

I saw another friend of mine fall out and I went with him. Corporal Locke counted his men and found he had one too many. He looked down the ranks, he saw me, and said:

"You don't belong to my party--you'll have to go somewhere else."

"I want to work with Private Black--I've been on your party before."

"I don't remember you. Anyhow, you weren't with me yesterday--I'm sorry, but I can't have you."

"Nobody'll notice the difference."

"I'm sorry; the S.M. has told me off once already for having too many men on my party. He went off the deep end [lost his temper] about it and said I'd get him into trouble. I can't let you stay."

One after another the fatigue parties were called out and I fell in with my own, the last of all and about eighty strong. Sergeant Hyndman was in charge.

The Sergeant-Major blew his whistle and shouted, "Move off!" and one by one the N.C.O.'s gave the words of command:

"Party--Tshn! Into File--Right Turn! By the Right--Quick March!"

As we passed out of the camp each of us drew a shovel or a pick from a great heap of tools near the entrance.

We got on to the road and formed fours, and at last began the longed-for march which would restore our circulation and warm our frozen feet.

The snow was still falling heavily and the wind blew it into our faces. We bowed our heads and pulled our caps down over our eyes. Our feet began to glow but our ears became painfully cold instead. We held our hands over them and as our ears grew warm our fingers became numb and frozen, so that we put our hands back into our pockets (although it was against regulations) and tried to think of something else.

Gradually, however, I became warm in every member and was filled with a sense of physical comfort that released my thoughts from immediate, material things. I thought of home and made plans for the future. I had a long, stubbornly contested argument with an imaginary opponent about the issues of the war. And then physical discomfort made itself felt again, all my free and wandering thoughts were gathered in by a wide-flung net and roughly thrown into a narrow dungeon.

I was growing unpleasantly hot and I longed to get rid of my heavy, sodden great-coat. The strap of my haversack was making my shoulder ache. I became peevish and fretful once more.

We swung along the road with rapid strides. Some of the feebler marchers showed signs of weariness and began to grumble at our speed. There was an ironical shout of "Double up in front," whereupon the front fours slowed down a little.

The wind increased in power and the snow flew past us in horizontal lines obscuring the Flemish landscape. We marched on in silence for an hour or more until suddenly the front fours halted and all the others thronged up against them. We had reached our destination.

There was a broad-gauge railway. On one side of it huge stacks of sleepers stretched away in long rows that were soon lost to sight in the wintry atmosphere. On the other side was a barbed wire fence. Beyond it lay flat fields on which the snow had settled evenly. In one of the fields was the dim form of a farm-building, barely visible through the rush and turmoil of dancing snowflakes.

A Sergeant of the Royal Engineers came up and told us what our work would be. We were to carry all the sleepers across the line and stack them in four rows on the far side of the fence.

"Is it a task job?" we asked.

The Sergeant did not know.

"What did they make us bring our shovels for?"

A voice, mocking such a naive questioner, answered:

"Don't yer know the army be now?"

We broke down a section of the fence. Two men were assigned to each stack. They loaded each sleeper on to the shoulders of a couple of men who carried it across the railway lines into the field, where it would be received and stacked by other men.