"This is his first leave since he went to France, and he thought he
must come to see the firm first of all. Sad about poor old Parkins,
wasn't it? Killed directly. And Smithers' leg--that was bad too. Rum
to see such a lot of girls all over the place, doing the boys' jobs.
Well, well, it's a strange world, and who would have thought all this
was going to happen?..."
Such is his conversation on the carpet. In the great clerks' room,
where there are now so many girls, he is a shade more of a dog. The
brave, you know, can't be wholly unconscious of the fair, and as I
pass through I catch the same words, but spoken with a slightly more
heroic ring.
"Lord, yes, you get used even to going over the top. A rotten feeling
the first time, but you get used to it. That's one of the rum things
about war, it teaches you what you can get used to. You get apathetic,
you know. That's the word--apathetic: used to anything. Standing for
hours in water up to your knees. Sleeping among rats." (Here some
pretty feminine squeals.) "It is a fact," he swears to them.
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