In this atmosphere, whatever glamour “active service” once possessed for P.J. soon disappeared. He did his work now, office and telephone duties varied by trips to front-line or batteries, with the meticulous accuracy of an automaton; wrote much to Patricia; and read the daily, weekly and monthly newspapers from cover to cover.
Towards the end of February, however, chance provided him with a new interest. Monsieur Van Woumen, the Belgian who had taken furnished his house in Lowndes Square, was anxious to renew the agreement. Peter, purely from habit, wrote back to the agent who made the offer, that he thought there should be an increase in the rent. The agent replied that his client would not increase the furnished rent; but might be prepared, on certain conditions, to take the remainder of the Crown lease off Peter’s hands. “Would you,” wrote the agent, “consider an offer for the furniture?”
The little deal kept Peter amused for a whole two months. He had no particular sentiment about either house or chattels. Patricia, consulted in a long business-like letter, approved of the scheme: making only certain reservations—some of her own bedroom furniture, the desk and sideboard in the dining-room, a blue carpet, and various other pieces she thought it inadvisable to dispose of. Monsieur Van Woumen paid his deposit; signed the agreement and completed the purchase-money by the time that—after three months and twenty-seven days which are best left to the imagination—the Southdown Artillery was ordered a week’s rest at Eecke.
In and around Eecke, the Southdown Division Artillery abode ten good days. It was earliest April. Sun shone on clean farms, on green fields and white pavé roads. Men, cleaning harness and equipment or leading teams to water, whistled at their work: the lines which the City had graven on their faces, disappeared. They chaffered merrily with the peasants for eggs or milk; sang songs in the _estaminets_; strolled, cigarettes in mouth, to Steenvoorde or Caestre, to Godewaersvelde or Sylvestre Cappel.
General Blacklock gave a dinner to his Colonels; the Colonels dined and wined their Battery Commanders. They held a “race-meeting” at which Peter and Little Willie—to the intense joy of all spectators—took a scunner at the post-and-rails, rolling headlong and unharmed in the mud. But, principally, the Fourth Brigade played poker.