machine-gunned, and high explosived by Germans. It was absolutely impossible, he asserted, for the War to end until it ended—well, until it ended as it ought to end. Did I think it right that so many men should have been sacrificed for no purpose? “And surely it stands to reason, Sherston, that you must be wrong when you set your own opinion against the practically unanimous feeling of the whole British Empire.” There was no answer I could make to that, so I remained silent and waited for the British Empire idea to blow over. In conclusion he said, “Well, I’ve done all I can for you. I told Mersey Defences that you missed your Board through a misunderstanding of the instructions, but I’m afraid the affair will soon go beyond my control. I beg you to try and reconsider your refusal by tomorrow, and to let us know at once if you do.”
He looked at me, almost irately, and departed without another word. When his bulky figure had vanished I felt that my isolation was perceptibly increasing. All I needed to do was to wait until the affair had got beyond his control. I wished I could have a talk with Tyrrell. But even he wasn’t infallible, for in all our discussions about my plan of campaign he had never foreseen that my senior officers would treat me with this kindly tolerance which was so difficult to endure.
During the next two days my mind groped and worried around the same purgatorial limbo so incessantly that the whole business began to seem unreal and distorted. Sometimes the wording of my thoughts became incoherent and even nonsensical. At other times I saw everything with the haggard clarity of insomnia.
So on Saturday afternoon I decided that I really must go and get some fresh air, and I took the electric train to Formby. How much longer would this ghastly show go on, I wondered, as the train pulled up at Clitherland Station. All I wanted now was that the thing should be taken out of my own control, as well as the Colonel’s. I didn’t care how they