When sent to the bank, a few yards
distant, he was absent for an hour. Cigarettes and late hours may have
given him a touch of pastiness.
To-day, what a change! Tall, well-set-up and bronzed, he is a model of
health and strength. His eyes meet all our eyes frankly; he has done
nothing to be ashamed of: there is no unposted letter in his pocket,
no consciousness of a muddled telephone message in his head. To be on
the dreaded carpet of the manager's room was once an ordeal; to-day he
can drop cigarette-ash on it and turn never a hair.
"Oh yes," he says, "he has been under fire. Knows it backwards. Knows
the difference in sound between all the shells. So far he's been very
lucky, but, Heavens! the pals he's lost! Terrible things happen, but
one gets numbed--apathetic, you know.
"What does it feel like to go over the top? The first time it's a
rotten feeling, but you get used to that too. War teaches you what you
can get used to, by George it does! He wouldn't have believed it, but
there--"
And so on. All coming quite naturally and simply; no swank, no false
modesty.
Pages:
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35