“It’s a silly front,” she said. “But it’s very beautiful. Are they going to have an offensive?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll have to work. There’s no work now.”
“Have you done nursing long?”
“Since the end of ’fifteen. I started when he did. I remember having a silly idea he might come to the hospital where I was. With a sabre cut, I suppose, and a bandage around his head. Or shot through the shoulder. Something picturesque.”
“This is the picturesque front,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “People can’t realize what France is like. If they did, it couldn’t all go on. He didn’t have a sabre cut. They blew him all to bits.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Do you suppose it will always go on?”
“No.”
“What’s to stop it?”
“It will crack somewhere.”
“We’ll crack. We’ll crack in France. They can’t go on doing things like the Somme and not crack.”
“They won’t crack here,” I said.
“You think not?”
“No. They did very well last summer.”