The best part of the two hours was spent in “franking”—­that is censoring—­his men’s letters.  It was a very unwelcome task, and although he thoroughly appreciated the military necessity, he cordially hated being forced, as it were, to pry into their private affairs.

Meanwhile the wind had dried them, and the sun was high in the heavens.  Rations arrived, and were distributed.  The sun and the tea warmed them, and in the afternoon a little sleep was possible.

The Subaltern was aroused at about four o’clock, and the march was continued.  The Senior Subaltern had received a box of Abdullas in the post, which he kindly shared with his two juniors.  The cigarettes seemed enormously fat, and the tobacco extraordinarily pale.  They had smoked nothing but the little “Caporal” French cigarettes—­and not many of them—­since their own supply had given out.  They had said all along how much they longed for “decent English” cigarettes, and now they had got them they were not at all so sure that they liked them.

There was a Lance-Corporal in the Company who was not as generous to his fellows as the Senior Subaltern had been.  He smoked the cigarettes he had been sent, persistently, and with obvious enjoyment.  The men around him were hungry for a “whiff”; the sight of him calmly lighting a fresh “fag” at the stump of the old maddened them beyond endurance.  At length one man could bear it no longer.

“Look at ‘im, a’eatin’ of ’em.  Lor! give a thought to yer ruddy comrades, can’t yer?”

They seemed to miss tobacco more poignantly than any other luxury.

A little later, sounds of great artillery bombardments rose up in front of them and on each side, but they could not yet see any signs of a fight, as they had not yet reached the edge of the plateau.

Further on, the road descended slightly, and a very little way ahead the Subaltern saw, for the first time, a Battery of heavy artillery at work.  The whole affair seemed to him to be singularly peaceful.  The men went to work in the same efficient and rapid way that they would have done in a machine-room.  Their targets were, of course, invisible, and there was no attempt to cover the guns from sight, nor to protect them from hostile shells.  He was surprised to see how comparatively slowly the gun recoiled after discharge.  The noise was ear-splitting, terrific.

“There’ll be some fun when the Transport comes along,” said the Senior Subaltern, with unholy glee.

He was right:  there probably would be a great deal of “fun.”  The Battery was not more than fifty yards from the road on the left, while on the right there was a drop, at an angle of at least sixty degrees, of twenty yards.  He imagined the frightened horses careering madly down the slope, the carts and wagons bumping and crashing down upon them—­the kicking, struggling heap below!