Fortune's oration, knowing that beneath its mockery there was no malice. But I noticed that he had no spontaneous gaiety on this night of Armistice and sat rather silent, with a far-away look in his eyes, and that hag-*ridden melancholy of his.
Young Clatworthy was between me and Brand, drinking too heavily, I thought. Brand thought so too, and gave him a word of caution.
"That champagne is pretty bad. I'd 'ware headaches, if I were you, young 'un."
"It's good enough," said Clatworthy. "Anything to put me in the right spirit."
There was an unnatural glitter in his eyes; and he laughed, too easily, at any joke of Fortune's. Presently he turned his attention to me, and began talking, excitedly, in a low monologue.
"Funny to think it's the last night! Can you believe it? It seems a lifetime since I came out in '14. I remember the first night, when I was sent up to Ypres to take the place of a subaltern who'd been knocked out. It was Christmas Eve, and my battalion was up in the line round Hooge. I detrained at Vlamertinghe. 'Can any one tell me the way to Hooge?' I asked one of the traffic men. Just like a country cousin at Piccadilly Circus. He looked at me in a queer way, and said, 'It's the same way to Hell, sir. Straight on until you get to Ypres, then out of the Menin gate and along the road to Hell-fire Corner. After that you trust to luck. Some young gentlemen never get no further.' I damned his impertinence and went on, till I came to the Grande Place in Ypres, where I just missed an eight-inch shell. It knocked out a gun-team. Shocking mess it made. 'The same way to Hell,' I kept saying, until I fell into a shell-hole along the Menin Road. But, d'you know, the fellow was wrong, after all!"
