"Rats
running over you half the night, and now and then a shell bursting
close by."
Standing at his own old desk as he talks, he looks even taller and
stronger than before--by way of contrast, I suppose, and as I pass
out I wonder if he will ever be able to bring himself to resume it.
Having occasion, a little while later, to go downstairs among the
warehousemen, where female labour has not yet penetrated. I hear him
again, and notice that his language has become more free. Safely
underground he extends himself a little.
"Over the top?" he is saying. "Yes, three blinking times. What does it
feel like the first time? Well--" and he tells them how it feels, in a
way that I can't reproduce here, but vivid as lightning compared with
his upstairs manner. And still he remains the clean forthright youth
who sees his duty a dead sure thing, and does it, even though he may
be perplexed now and then.
"So long!" they say, old men-friends and new girl-acquaintances
crowding round him as at last he tears himself away (and watching him
from the distance I am inclined to think that, if he gets through, he
will come back to us after all).
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