of the loneliness. Well, there he was—finished—and a nasty sight. I went off to the P.O.W. cage, and examined the beggars—one of them, as usual, had been a waiter at the Cecil, and said 'How's dear old London?'—and passed the time of day with Bob Mellett. You know—the one-armed lad. He laughed no end when he heard of my narrow squeak. So did I—though it's hard to see the joke. He lent me his car on the way back, and somewhere outside Courtrai we bumped over a dead body, with a queer soft squelch. It was a German—a young 'un—and Bob Mellett said, 'He won't be home for Christmas!' Do you know Bob?—he used to cry at school when a rat was caught. Queer, isn't it? Now here I am, sitting at a white table-cloth, listening to the Colonel's talk, and pretending to be interested. I'm not a bit, really. I'm wondering why that bit of shell hit Saunders and not me. Or why I'm not lying in a muddy road as a bit of soft squelch for staff-cars to bump over. And on top of that I'm wondering how it will feel to hang up a bowler hat again in a house at Wimbledon, and say 'Cheerio, Mother!' to the mater (who will be knitting in the same arm-chair—chintz-covered—by the piano) and read the evening paper until dinner's ready, take Ethel to a local dance, and get back into the old rut of home life in a nice family, don't you know? With all my memories. With the ghosts of this life crowding up. Ugly ghosts, some of 'em! Dirty ghosts!. . . It's inconceivable that we can ever go back to the funny old humdrum! I'm not sure that I want to."
"You're hipped," I told him. "You'll be glad to get back all right. Wimbledon will be Paradise after what you've been through."
"Oh, Lord, I've done nothing," said the boy. "Fact is, I've been talking tripe. Forget it."
