Michael was sitting in the kitchen of a French farm-house just outside the village of Laires, some three miles behind the English front. The kitchen door was open, and on the flagged floor was cast an oblong of primrose-coloured November sunshine, warm and pleasant, so that the bluebottle flies buzzed hopefully about it, settling occasionally on the cracked green door, where they cleaned their wings, and generally furbished themselves up, as if the warmth was that of a spring day that promised summer to follow.
They were there in considerable numbers, for just outside in the cobbled yard was a heap of manure, where they hungrily congregated.
Against the white-washed wall of the house there lay a fat sow, basking contentedly, and snorting in her dreams. The yard, bounded on two sides by the house walls, was shut in on the third by a row of farm-sheds, and the fourth was open. Just outside it stood a small copse half flooded with the brimming water of a sluggish stream that meandered by the side of the farm-road leading out of the yard, which turned to the left, and soon joined the highway.
This farm-road was partly under water, though not deeply, so that by skirting along its raised banks it was possible to go dry-shod to the highway underneath which the stream passed in a brick culvert.
Through the kitchen window, set opposite the door, could be seen a broad stretch of country of the fenland type, flat and bare, and intersected with dykes, where sedges stirred slightly in the southerly breeze. Here and there were pools of overflowed rivulets, and here and there were plantations of stunted hornbeam, the russet leaves of which still clung thickly to them. But in the main it was a bare and empty land, featureless and stolid.
Just below the kitchen window there was a plot of cultivated ground, thriftily and economically used for the growing of vegetables. Concession, however, was made to the sense of brightness and beauty, for on each side of the path leading up to the door ran a row of Michaelmas daisies, rather battered by the fortnight of rain which had preceded this day of still warm sun, but struggling bravely to shake off the effect of the adverse conditions under which they had laboured.
The kitchen itself was extremely clean and orderly. Its flagged floor was still damp and brown in patches from the washing it had received two hours before; but the draught between open window and open door was fast drying it. Down the centre of the room was a deal table without a cloth, on which were laid some half-dozen places, each marked with a knife and fork and spoon and a thick glass, ready for the serving of the midday meal. On the white-washed walls hung two photographs of family groups, in one of which appeared the father and mother and three little children, in the other the same personages some ten years later, and a lithograph of the Blessed Virgin. On each side of the table was a deal bench, at the head and foot two wooden armchairs. A dresser stood against the wall, on the floor by the oven was a frayed rug, and most important of all, to Michael's mind, was a big stewpot that stood on the top of the oven. From time to time a fat, comfortable Frenchwoman bustled in, and took off the lid of this to stir it, or placed on the dresser a plate of cheese, or a loaf of freshly cooked brown bread. Two or three of Michael's brother-officers were there, one sitting in the patch of sunlight with his back against the green door, another on the step outside. The post had come in not long before, and all of them, Michael included, were occupied with letters and papers.
To-day there happened to be no letters for Michael, and the paper which he glanced at seemed a very feeble effort in the way of entertainment. There was no news in it, except news about the war, which here, out at the front, did not interest him in the least.
Perhaps in England people liked to know that a hundred yards of trenches had been taken at one place, and that three German attacks had failed at another; but when you were actually engaged (or had been or would soon again be) in taking part in those things, it seemed a waste of paper and compositor's time to record them.
There was a column of letters also from indignant Britons, using violent language about the crimes and treachery of Germany. That also was uninteresting and far-fetched. Nothing that Germany had done mattered the least. There was no use in arguing and slinging wild expressions about; it was a stale subject altogether when you were within earshot of that incessant booming of guns. All the morning that had gone on without break, and no doubt they would get news of what had happened before they set out again that evening for another spell in the trenches. But in all probability nothing particular had happened. Probably the London papers would record it next day, a further tediousness on their part. It would be much more interesting to hear what was going on there, whether there were any new plays, whether there had been any fresh concerts, what the weather was like, or even who had been lunching at Prince's, or dining at the Carlton.
He put down his uninteresting paper, and strolled out into the farmyard, stepping over the legs of the junior officer who blocked the doorway, and did not attempt to move. On the doorstep was sitting a major of his regiment, who, more politely, shifted his place a little so that Michael should pass. Outside the smell of manure was acrid but not unpleasant, the old sow grunted in her sleep, and one of the green shutters outside the upper windows slowly blew to. There was someone inside the room apparently, for the moment after a hand and arm bare to the elbow were protruded, and fastened the latch of the shutter, so that it should not move again.
