It was already sunset.  After the edge, as it were, had been taken off his exhaustion, the Subaltern extracted the before-mentioned piece of soap, and having, as usual, scraped it ready for action, washed his feet in a little stream.  He did it under the impression that marching for that day was over.  It is very comfortable to wash your hot, tired feet in a cool stream provided there is no necessity to put your boots on again.  If something happens that forces you to do this, you are in for a hard and painful job.  You would not believe it possible for feet to swell like yours have swelled.  They do not seem like your own feet at all.  They have expanded past recognition, and their tenderness surpasses thought.

The Subaltern was sitting by the stream edge gazing at the flush of golden light in the west, when he was awakened by the Major.

“Well, young feller, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.  You’ve got to take your Platoon out to this village, Villiers, and occupy it till further orders—­a sort of outpost position—­you will be too far from the main body to establish touch; you have really just to block the roads, and if you are rushed, retire here the best way you can.”

Having made sure of the position on the map, and asked for a couple of cyclists to accompany him, the Subaltern began to put on his boots.  But they would not go on.  It was like trying to get a baby’s boots on to a giant’s feet, and the more he tugged the more it hurt.  The precious moments of daylight would soon be gone, and in the dark it would be ten times more difficult to find the village and block the roads.  There was nothing for it but to cut the boots, so, unwrapping a fresh Gillette blade, he made a large V-shaped gash in the top part of each.  It was annoying to have to spoil good boots, and in addition his feet would get wet far sooner than hitherto.

All superfluous articles of weight had long since been thrown away, and consequently he had nothing except matches with which to read his map in the dark and windy night.  The difficulty was increased by the fact that the way lay across small tracks which were almost impossible to distinguish, but eventually, more by luck than judgment, he brought his men into a village.  Was it Villiers?  It took him some time to find out.  There were plenty of people in the village street, but the Subaltern could not get coherent speech out of any one of them.  Fear makes an uneducated Englishman suspicious, quickwitted and surly.  It drives the French peasant absolutely mad.  That village street seemed to have less sense, less fortitude, less coolness than a duck-run invaded by a terrier.  The Subaltern caught a man by the arm and pushed him into a doorway.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est, le nom de cette village?” he said, with as much insistence and coolness as he could muster.  The poor fellow broke into a tirade in which his desire to cut German throats, his peculiarly unfortunate circumstances, and his wish to get away literally tripped over each other.