‘Oh, yes, but not now. He is going in the armée too, some weeks.’
Harry looked away again. Every bloody army, in every damned country in this stupid show, was gulping down men like a starving dog. Millions of men swallowed and not a jot of difference. They could do with more in their own battalion. Not that he wanted any shirkers shoved into uniform and sent where they were too bloody chicken-hearted to be any use. That was maybe the only sort left at home. Even bloody Joe had gone and enlisted. All the good blokes had come, and all the best ones were gone.
‘Ah, please, not to cry. Arry?’
‘I’m all right.’
‘No,’ said Claudelle. ‘You are tired, fatigué, too tired. You sleep now.’
She tried leaving him in the front room, but he wasn’t having it. He insisted she took the bed, that he woul
