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They belonged to a Sussex battalion, and I said, "Any one here from
Burpham?"
One of the boys sat up, stared, flushed to the roots of his yellow
hair, and said, "Yes."
I spoke to him of people I knew there, and he was astonished that I
should know them. Distressed also in a queer way. Those memories of a
Sussex village seemed to break down some of the hardness in which he
had cased himself. I could see a frightful homesickness in his blue
eyes.
"P'raps I've seed the last o' Burpham," he said in a kind of whisper,
so that the other men should not hear.
The other men were from Arundel, Littlehampton, and Sussex villages.
They were of Saxon breed. There was hardly a difference between them
and some German prisoners I saw, yellow-haired as they were, with
fair, freckled, sun-baked skins. They told me they were glad to be out
in France. Anything was better than training at home.
"I like Germans more'n sergeant-majors," said one young yokel, and the
others shouted with laughter at his jest.


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