“Get your horse away; he’s kicking mine!” said Captain Resmith impatiently to George, reflecting the general mood.  And George, who was beginning to experience fatigue in the region of the knees, visited on his horse the resentment he felt at Resmith’s tone.

At precisely that moment some drops of rain fell.  Nobody could believe at first that the drops were raindrops for the whole landscape was quivering in hot sunshine.  However, an examination of the firmament showed a cloud perpendicularly overhead; the drops multiplied; the cloud slowly obscured the sun.  An almost audible sigh of relief passed down the line.  Everybody was freshened and elated.  Some men with an instinct for the apposite started to sing: 

“Shall we gather at the river?”

And nearly the whole Battery joined in the tune.  The rain persevered, thickening.  The sun accepted defeat.  The sky lost all its blue.  Orders were given as to clothing.  George had the sensation that something was lacking to him, and found that it was an umbrella.  On the outskirts of Ewell the Battery was splashing through puddles of water; the coats of horses and of men had darkened; guns, poles, and caps carried chaplets of raindrops; and all those stern riders, so proud and scornful, with chins hidden in high, upturned collars, and long garments disposed majestically over their legs and the flanks of the horses, nevertheless knew in secret that the conquering rain had got down the backs of their necks, and into their boots and into their very knees but they were still nobly maintaining the illusion of impermeability against it.  The Battery, riding now stiffly ‘eyes front,’ was halted unexpectedly in Ewell, filling the whole of the village, to the village’s extreme content.  Many minutes elapsed.  Rumour floated down that something, was wrong in front.  Captain Resmith had much inspectorial cantering to do, and George faithfully followed him for some time.  At one end of the village a woman was selling fruit and ginger-beer to the soldiers at siege prices; at the other, men and women out of the little gardened houses were eagerly distributing hot tea and hot coffee free of charge.  The two girls from the crossroads entered the village, pushing their bicycles, one of which had apparently lost a pedal.  They wore mackintoshes, and were still laughing.

At length George said: 

“If you don’t mind I’ll stick where I am for a bit.”

“Tired, eh?” Resmith asked callously.

“Well!  I shall be if I keep on.”

“Dismount, my canny boy.  Didn’t I tell you what would happen to you?  At your age—­”

“Why!  How old d’you think I am?”

“Well, my canny boy, you’ll never see thirty again, I suppose.”

“No, I shan’t.  Nor you either.”

Captain Resmith said: 

“I’m twenty-four.”