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Major Gould Adams was the first to call out that he was all right; the other had been so suffocated by gravel and brickdust that it was several moments before he could speak. In a few minutes dusty forms and terrified faces appeared through the gloom, as dense as the thickest London yellow fog, expecting to find three mutilated corpses.
The brickdust an' plaster came rattlin' down, an' when the dust cleared a bit an' I got my sense an' my eyesight back, I could see a splintered hole in the far corner of my ceilin'. I made sure the F.O. upstairs was blotted out, 'cos it was that corner upstairs where 'is loophole was; but next minute 'e sings out an' asks was I all right.
An hour later a farmer passes on horseback; his horse all too broad for his short legs that stick out at the side and show some inches of stocking between the bottom of his trousers and his boots. A sturdy, thick-set man, with a wide face, brickdust colour, fringed with close-cut red whiskers, and a chest so broad he seems compelled to wear his coat unbuttoned.
The big, ridgy veins in the back of his neck stood out like window-cords from a close smocking of fine wrinkles. The neck itself was tanned to a brickdust red. A gnawed white mustache bristled on his upper lip. He was tall without seeming to be tall and broad without appearing broad, and he was old enough for a grandfather and spry enough for his own grandchild. You know the type.
Trains of ammunition trucks, supply carts and wagons of all sorts, great trucks laden with jam and meat and flour, all were passing every moment. There was an incessant din of horses' feet and the steady crunch crunch of heavy boots as the soldiers marched through the rubble and the brickdust. And I knew that all this had gone on while the town was still under fire.
It is time for a change of some sort, for the worse or the better, when we get habitually, and by a social rule, water for milk, brickdust for chocolate, silex for butter, and minerals of one kind and another for bread; when our drugs give the lie to science; when mustard refuses to 'counter-irritate, and sugar has ceased to be sweet, and pepper, to say nothing of 'ginger' is no longer 'hot in the mouth. The question in speculative philosophy at present is
His mouth was twisted on one side, his nose on the other, while his right eyebrow was elevated more than an inch above the left; added to which he squinted intolerably, had a long fell of straight sandy hair, a sandy beard and moustache, and a complexion of the colour of brickdust. "An ugly dog," muttered Leonard to himself, as he finished his scrutiny; "what can he want with me?
And it was a long way, over three miles, from rear H.Q. to the dump at Hexham Road. One morning I went with Major Anderson to the ruins of Eaucourt L'Abbaye on a visit of inspection. For months this was a terribly shelled place, and it was now nothing but a pile of broken sticks and brickdust. We were lucky to get clear of it before the morning hate began.
"One fine woman is as good as another, madame; and if I don't sniff the pestilence out of a scent-bottle, nor daub brickdust on my cheeks " "That would be a sinful waste, child, when Nature put it on for you to begin with," said Heloise, with a side glance at her manager. "I am an honest woman " "So much the worse for you.
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