We spoke bitterly of all these things and thought of them with raging impotence; but the even tenor of our life went on.  We continued to do our obscure and undistinguished work for the country.  It became a habit, part of the day’s routine.  We almost forgot why we were doing it.  The war seemed to make little real difference in our social life.  The small town was pitch black at night.  Prices rose.  Small economies were practised.  Labour was scarce.  Fewer young men out of uniform were seen in the streets and neighbouring roads and lanes.  Groups of wounded from the hospital in their uniform of deep blue jean with red ties and khaki caps gave a note of actuality to the streets.  Otherwise, there were few signs of war.  Even the troops who hitherto swarmed about the town had gradually been removed from billets to a vast camp of huts some miles away, and appeared only sporadically about the place.  I missed them and the stimulus of their presence.  They brought me into closer touch with things.  Marigold, too, pined for more occupation for his one critical eye than was afforded by the local volunteers.  He grew morose, sick of a surfeit of newspapers.  If he could have gone to France and got through to the firing-line, I am sure he would have dug a little trench all to himself and defied the Germans on his own account.

In November Colonel Dacre was brought home gravely wounded, to a hospital for officers in London.  A nurse gave me the news in a letter in which she said that he had asked to see me before an impending hazardous operation.  I went up to town and found him wrecked almost beyond recognition.  As we were the merest of acquaintances with nothing between us save our common link with Boyce, I feared lest he should desire to tell me of some shameful discovery.  But his gay greeting and the brave smile, pathetically grotesque through the bandages in which his head was wrapped, reassured me.  Only his eyes and mouth were visible.

“It’s worth while being done in,” said he.  “It makes one feel like a Sultan.  You have just to clap your hands and say ‘I want this,’ and you’ve got it.  I’ve a good mind to say to this dear lady, ‘Fetch their gracious Majesties from Buckingham Palace,’ and I’m sure they’d be here in a tick.  It’s awfully good of you to come, Meredyth.”

I signed to Marigold, who had carried me into the ward and set me down on a chair, and to the Sister, the “dear lady” of Dacre’s reference, to withdraw, and after a few sympathetic words I asked him why he had sent for me.

“I’m broken to bits all over,” he replied.  “The doctors here say they never saw such a blooming mess-up of flesh pretending to be alive.  And as for talking, they’d just as soon expect speech from a jellyfish squashed by a steam-roller.  If I do get through, I’ll be a helpless crock all my days.  I funked it till I thought of you.  I thought the sight of another fellow who has gone through it and stuck it out might give me courage.  I’ve had my wife here.  We’re rather fond of one another, you know ...  My God! what brave things women are!  If she had broken down all over me I could have risen to the occasion.  But she didn’t, and I felt a cowardly worm.”