Explore "The Middle Parts of Fortune: Somme and Ancre" by Frederic Manning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
-".ambition, / The soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss / Than gain which darkens him." -SHAKESPEARE
Captain Malet watched Sergeant Tozer drilling his section on some of the wasteland beyond the huts. It had rained a little in the night, and there was no dust. They had been doing some rapid wiring with screw-pickets, but there was not enough material for the work done to provide any test of efficiency. Afterwards, to wake them up, the sergeant gave them a little extended order drill, and Bourne being the last man on the right, the sergeant amused himself by giving the order left wheel repeatedly, so that Bourne sweated at the double for the greater part of that hour. Almost as soon as he dropped into quick march, on coming into line with the pivotal man again, there would be a shrill whistle from the sergeant, who, standing very erect, would sweep his outstretched arm round a quarter of the horizon, and Bourne was at the double again, saying, under his breath and while he had any breath, things that were more sincere than complimentary.