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And Tommy, "We're the King's Own 'Ymn of 'Aters"; some such subtle repartee as that. "Wot's your mob?" "We're a battalion of Irish rifles." The Germans liked to provoke us by pretending that the Irish were disloyal to England. Sometimes they shouted: "Any of you from London?" "Not arf! Wot was you a-doin' of in London? Witin' tible at Sam Isaac's fish-shop?"
In the night, however, we heard him thumping about. I got up anxiously with a candle. He had eaten some food, and scattered more, making a mess. And he was perched on the back of a heavy arm-chair. So I concluded he was recovered, or recovering. The next day was clear, and the snow had frozen, so I decided to carry him back to Tible.
She drew a letter from her pocket, and handed it to me. It was addressed from France to Lance-Corporal Goyte, at Tible. I took out the letter and began to read it, as mere words. 'Mon cher Alfred' it might have been a bit of a torn newspaper. So I followed the script: the trite phrases of a letter from a French-speaking girl to an English soldier. 'I think of you always, always.
And Joe felt more relieved even than he had felt when he heard the firing cease, after the news had come that the armistice was signed. There was thin, crisp snow on the ground, the sky was blue, the wind very cold, the air clear. Farmers were just turning out the cows for an hour or so in the midday, and the smell of cow-sheds was unendurable as I entered Tible.
Joey seemed to watch all the time with wide anxious, unseeing eye, brilliant and inscrutable. As I drew near to Tible township he stirred violently in the bag, though I do not know if he had recognized the place. Then, as I came to the sheds, he looked sharply from side to side, and stretched his neck out long. I was a little afraid of him.
Nothing stirred the whole day no plume fell off the shrubs, the valley was as abstracted as a grove of death. I looked over at the tiny, half-buried farms away on the bare uplands beyond the valley hollow, and I thought of Tible in the snow, of the black witch-like little Mrs. Goyte. And the snow seemed to lay me bare to influences I wanted to escape.
I blew my nose and prepared to depart. 'And she doesn't know anything? he continued, jerking his head up the hill in the direction of Tible. 'She knows nothing but what I've said that is, if she really burnt the letter. 'I believe she burnt it, he said, 'for spite. She's a little devil, she is. But I shall have it out with her. His jaw was stubborn and sullen.
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