'e?" said Bill in awed admiration. "Talk about 'olesale! Look 'ere, Eustace, you'll be getting us into 'orrible trouble if you don't look out. What was it you wanted to do—reduce the R.S.M. to ashes? We're in a bad enough 'ole as it is, but that would fair put the lid on. You wants to be a little more up to date. Me an' Mr. 'Iggins is on'y privates, you know; an' if we get monkeyin' with sergeant-majors there'll be 'ell on for all of us." "Verily," said the djinn in perplexed tones, "I do not understand thy speech. Ill beseemeth it that any man should presume to order the comings and the goings of the Lord of the Button. Bid me abase this proud upstart, and thou shalt rule in his stead." "No, thank you," said Alf. "I don't want to be no bloomin' orficer. I'm a plain man, I am. You see, Eustace, it's like this. In this 'ere war, every one's fightin'—soldiers an' civilians an' all. Now, I'm not a soldier by trade—fruit and vegetable salesman I am. So I 'as to obey the orficers an' the sergeants, 'cos they knows the job. If they'd come into the fruit an' vegetables not knowin' a carrot from a crisantlemum, they'd 'ave 'ad to obey me. See?" "I don't think!" put in Bill. "Look 'ere, Eustace, your job's to get us out o' this 'ere mess. Just through yer bloomin' ignorance you're landed us in a proper 'ole. 'Ere we are; we've deserted[Pg 112] from the front, an' we've broken arrest in the Reserve Battalion. 'Ow are we goin' to get out o' that, eh?" [Pg 112] Alf made a tentative suggestion, his mind on Colonel Watts. "Better go back to France, 'adn't we?" "I sh'd think we 'ad." Bill's hopeless nostalgia of the day before was entirely forgotten. "Why, I'd sooner stay in France the rest o' the war than serve under that blighter we was before this mornin'. 'E was a corker." "But if we're deserters," said Alf dismally, "'ow can we go back? Wouldn't they shoot us?" Bill looked at his watch. "Why, it's on'y ten o'clock now," he said. "They'd find we was gone at revally, so we've on'y been away about four hours. What's four hours when the battalion's restin'? They can't do much to us." "Might stop our leave."
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