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The men had removed all traces of their work by cleaning the splashed floor, and were busy now in the open space behind the house washing the mud-caked clothes which they had stripped from Mr. Selincourt, for those men who go on portage work must have at least an elementary knowledge of washing, or be content to go without clean shirts most of their time.
The smell of perspiration was stifling as Stephen pushed up to the master of the situation. "What's that? Supper, young man? Ain't you had no supper? Gosh, I reckon if you can fight your way to the dinin' room, the gals'll give you some pork and a cup of coffee." After a preliminary scuffle with a drunken countryman in mud-caked boots, Mr. Brice presently reached the long table in the dining-room.
"Ah'm goin' to sleep," said Chrisfield. He stretched himself out on the pile of equipment at the end of the car. Andrews sat down near him and stared at his mud-caked boots, running one of his long hands, as brown as Chrisfield's now, through his light short- cut hair. Chrisfield lay looking at the gaunt outline of Andrews's face against the light through half-closed eyes.
"There's a brass hat coming down the trench," said Phineas, "and brass hats have no use for rhapsodical privates." They stood to attention as the staff officer passed by. Then Doggie broke in impatiently: "I wish to goodness you could understand what I'm trying to get at." A smile illuminated the gaunt, unshaven, mud-caked face of Phineas McPhail.
The matter was impersonal, the groaning Hun was a Hun, not an individuality. . . . A couple of men, mud-caked and weary, with a Lewis gun between them, are peering over the top in an early light of dawn. Beside them there are others: tense, with every nerve alert, looking fixedly into the grey shadows, wondering, a little jumpy. "Wot is it, Bill?"
Four mud-caked cars stood in the driveway and chauffeurs in their shirt sleeves hurried in and out the building, shouting to one another and carrying in their hands grimy rags and cans of oil. A short half hour had transformed the quiet spot to a beehive of noise and bustle. The rush seemed contagious for wherever one looked moving figures could be seen.
So, as to that item, in all the wild-eyed city shaking with its ague of anxieties only Anna was troubled when day after day no detective came back with the old mud-caked dagger and now both were away on some quite alien matter, no one could say where. She alone was troubled, for she alone knew it was the bazaar's proceeds which had disappeared.
It was heavy work, too, for infantry who not only had to carry the weight of mud-caked boots, but were handicapped by continual slipping upon the rocky ground. The 75th advancing along the road from Enab to Kustul got an idea of the Turkish lack of attention to the highway, the main road being deep in mud and full of dangerous ruts.
There was plenty of evidence that the room had been occupied by others since its lawful tenants had fled. It was strewn with broken or cast-off military equipments, worn-out boots, frayed and mud-caked putties, a burst haversack and pack-valise, a holed water-bottle, broken webbing straps and belts, a bayonet with a snapped blade, a torn grey shirt, and a goatskin coat.
The ferryman, the lantern lifted, took a look at his passenger. "Mighty wet weather we're having," he said. "Terrible. Don't ever remember it worse." The light of the lantern fell on the horse's mud-caked legs. "Looks as if you'd rid quite a ways." "From this side of Jackson." "That's some ride. Guess y'ain't met many folks." "Not many. Staying indoors this weather, all that can."
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