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'Sergeant Major, I know that when I signed myself up in 1914 I would be putting my life on the line, but I didn't know it was going to be like this. Or come to this.' He paused. 'But I don't want to have to go out and meet something that I don't understand.'

Corporal Harte sighed to himself as William stood with him watching the men labour on the Albert-Amiens road. They carried stones from a horse a cart to fill craters in the road caused by German shelling. Harte had taken off his beret to wipe his face with his handkerchief. The sun beat down on the still day as it approached its highest point.

Corporal Thomas Harte had worked as a conductor on the electric trams in Manchester. He was thirty three years old, a quiet man by his nature. He had the calmness and sensibility required of a Corporal in the Labour Corps. William was afraid that the lack of action seen for several months might slow the men and make them lazy. Harte, he believed, was a man who would keep his squad sharp, and it appeared so as they toiled in the heat. But this war, this monotonous life they lead where they woke up each morning to repair the fresh shell craters in the roads they had worked on just a few days ago. Vital work it may be as convoys waited for them to complete the repairs, but the war dragged on and questions and arguments over what they were 'fighting' for flared up.

When they landed in France as Royal Engineers Harte had a full head of hair, now, as they stood in the hot morning sun in Picardy, Harte was balding fast. Transferred into a new unit, the Labour Corps, an unarmed force used to maintain roads and light railway. Similar to the work they had done before as Royal Engineers, only unarmed. William couldn't see the sense in taking away a soldier's gun. It's like taking away his purpose.

'It's not that I'm afraid.' He continues. 'I just want to see my wife and children. It's been two years we've been here Sergeant Major.' He furrowed his brow.

William turns to Harte, 'Corporal Harte, we'll get home someday. Make sure those craters are filled by noon.'

Those were the only words of encouragement he could offer as he left Harte to supervise the men alone. It wasn't easy being Sergeant Major of a company of older men. They had wives and children they had never left at home alone. Some, he thought, would even prefer to be in the front line than labouring over craters at the rear. Of course they weren't free from danger. They were regularly under fire from the German's guns which they were always in range of. That surely had some effect on the men's nerves. They had no dug outs or trenches to hide in.

As Royal Engineers in 1916 they had gone in as support in some assaults, which had gotten the men's adrenaline racing. It was what they signed up for, Kitchener's call in 1914. They were all classed as labourers, being older men, short sighted or having some other shortcoming that prevented them from being infantry. William was promoted to Company Sergeant Major immediately on account of his occupation, a builder's foreman and a qualified master joiner, that and his military experience.

'Company Sergeant Major Till' Captain Bristed called. 'How long will it be until this road is repaired?'

'About half an hour sir, it would be faster but it's almost noon and it's getting hot.'

'Spiffing weather though isn't it Sergeant Major?' Bristed looked up at the clear blue sky, stroking his moustached, slightly greyed. 'We had weather like this nine months of the year in New Zealand. I don't know why I ever went back to those dull grey days in England. Well at least I got this war Sergeant Major. Newspapers say the Bosch are on their last legs.'

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See her with the green dress?
She talked to me at the bar.

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