At the beginning of January David got himself passed for General Service abroad. I was completely taken by surprise when he came back and told me. Apparently the doctor asked him whether he wanted some more home service, but a sudden angry pride made him ask to be given G.S. A couple of weeks later he’d had his final leave and I was seeing him off at Liverpool Station.
A glum twenty-one-year-old veteran (unofficially in charge of a batch of young officers going out for the first time) he butted his way along the crowded platform with shoulders hunched, collar turned up to his ears, and hands plunged in pockets. A certain philosophic finality was combined with the fidgety out-of-luck look which was not unusual with him. “I’ve reduced my kit to a minimum this time. No revolver. I’ve worked it out that the chances are about five to one against my ever using it,” he remarked, as he stood shuffling his feet to try and keep them warm. He hadn’t explained how he’d worked the chances out, but he was always fond of a formula. Then the train began to move and he climbed awkwardly into his compartment. “Give my love to old Joe when you get to the First Battalion,” was my final effort at heartiness. He nodded with a crooked smile. Going out for the third time was a rotten business and his face showed it.
“I ought to be going with him,” I thought, knowing that I could have got G.S. at my last Board if I’d had the guts to ask for it. But how could one ask for it when there was a hope of getting a few more days with the Cheshire and the weather was so perishing cold out in France? “What a queer mixture he is,” I thought, as I wandered absentmindedly away from the station. Nothing could have been more cheerless than the rumbling cobbled street by the Docks, with dingy warehouses shutting out the dregs of daylight and an ash-coloured sky which foretold some