nakid 'ere for the —— jackals to sniff and gnaw at.
"An' you a-wantin' to snuffle a yimn. Oh, yuss, I know. Me favver an' me muvver was bible punchers same as you, always a-tellin' of 'im an' 'is ways. But 'e's always for them wot has. I've seed it since I came 'ere to the East—always on the side of the officers. The Tommies? Bli-me! They can shift for themselves: Gawd's busy lookin' out for the officers, an' the bloody Turks.
"One of us must be right. You're C. of E. I'm chapel, Perkins there was R.C. One of the three must 'a been Christians. But w'en night comes, the 'eathen Turks'll come, led by this Aller they worships, an' oo'll be better off—me, as trusted my officer, oo trusted to Gawd, Perkins oo went to Mass last week, or Johnny, as trusts to Aller an' cops the bloody lot of us?"
The low, monotonous voice droned on. Under garish light of Eastern midday, death ringing them round, death beating down from the unclouded sky, to strike them down with a touch if their heads were for a moment uncovered by the pith topees, he droned of his home in the London slums, the life of hardship and semi-starvation, the years in the board school, the voyage, the return to the slums, the enlistment to escape the prospect of a quick old age, the workhouse,
