“But, man, surely it’s better at home.”
“Some ways,” says he, and with open mouth sinks into a day-dream.
You can see what he is thinking. There is the mean little hut on the moors, the hard work on the heath from morning till night in the heat, the miserable pay, the dirty labourer’s clothes.
“In the army in peace time you’ve nothing to trouble about,” he goes on, “your food’s found every day, or else you kick up a row; you’ve a bed, every week clean underwear like a perfect gent, you do your non-com.’s duty, you have a good suit of clothes; in the evening you’re a free man and go off to the pub.”
Haie is extraordinarily set on his idea. He’s in love with it.
“And when your twelve years are up you get your pension and become a village bobby, and you can walk about the whole day.”
He’s already sweating on it. “And just you think how you’d be treated. Here a dram, there a pint. Everybody wants to be well in with a bobby.”
“You’ll never be a non-com. though, Haie,” interrupts Kat.
Haie looks at him sadly and is silent. His thoughts still linger over the clear evenings in autumn, the
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