VII

be reported in full, I am afraid that the verdict of posterity would be against us. We agreed that the world had gone mad; but neither of us could see beyond his own experience, and we weren’t life-learned enough to share the patient selfless stoicism through which men of maturer age were acquiring anonymous glory. Neither of us had the haziest idea of what the politicians were really up to (though it is possible that the politicians were only feeling their way and trusting in providence and the output of munitions to solve their problems). Nevertheless we argued as though the secret confabulations of Cabinet Ministers in various countries were as clear as daylight to us, and our assumption was that they were all wrong, while we, who had been in the trenches, were farseeing and infallible. But when I said that the War ought to be stopped and it was my duty to do my little bit to stop it, David replied that the War was bound to go on till one side or the other collapsed, and the Pacifists were only meddling with what they didn’t understand. “At any rate Thornton Tyrrell’s a jolly fine man and knows a bloody sight more about everything than you do,” I exclaimed. “Tyrrell’s only a doctrinaire,” replied David, “though I grant you he’s a courageous one.” Before I had time to ask what the hell he knew about doctrinaires, he continued, “No one except people who’ve been in the real fighting have any right to interfere about the War; and even they can’t get anything done about it. All they can do is to remain loyal to one another. And you know perfectly well that most of the conscientious objectors are nothing but skrimshankers.” I retorted that I knew nothing of the sort, and mentioned a young doctor who’d played Rugby Football for Scotland and was now in prison although he could have been doing hospital work if he’d wanted to. David then announced that he’d been doing a bit of wire-pulling on my behalf and that I should soon find that my Pacifist M.P. wouldn’t do me as much good as I expected. This put my back up. David had no right to come butting in about my private affairs. “If you’ve really been trying to persuade the authorities not to do anything nasty to me,” I remarked, “that’s about the hopefullest thing I’ve heard.