witness were now something to be proud of. I even went so far as to assert that I wouldn’t have missed this War for anything. It brought things home to one somehow, I remarked, frowning portentously as I lit my pipe, and forgetting for the moment what a mercy it had been when it brought me home myself. Oh yes, I knew all about the Battle of the Somme, and could assure them that we should be in Bapaume by October. Replying to their tributary questions, I felt that they envied me my experience.
While I was on my way home, I felt elated at having outgrown the parish boundaries of Butley. After all, it was a big thing, to have been in the thick of a European War, and my peacetime existence had been idle and purposeless. It was bad luck on Protheroe and the doctor; they must hate being left out of it. … I suppose one must give this damned War its due, I thought, as I sat in the schoolroom with one candle burning. I felt comfortable, for Miss Protheroe had made me a cup of cocoa. I took Durley’s letter out of my pocket and had another look at it; but it wasn’t easy to speculate on its implications. The War’s all right as long as one doesn’t get killed or smashed up, I decided, blowing out the candle so that I could watch the moonlight which latticed the floor with shadows of the leaded windows. Where the moonbeams lay thickest they touched the litter of drying lavender. I opened the window and sniffed the autumn-smelling air. An owl hooted in the garden, and I could hear a train going along the Weald. Probably a hospital-train from Dover, I thought, as I closed the window and creaked upstairs on tiptoe so as not to disturb Aunt Evelyn.
About a week afterwards I received two letters from Dottrell, written on consecutive days, but delivered by the same post. The first one began:
“The old Batt. is having a rough time. We were up in the front a week ago and lost 200 men in three days. The aid-post, a bit of a dugout hastily made, was blown in. At