"Permanent base, sir. My chest's rotten!"
The general said:
"I should forget that, if I were you. . . . The second in command of a battalion has nothing to do but sit about in arm-chairs waiting for the colonel to be killed." He added: "It's the best I can do for you. . . . I've thought it out very carefully. It's the best I can do for you."
Tietjens said:
"I shall, of course, forget my category, sir. . . ."
Of course he would never fight any treatment of himself! . . .
There it was then: the natural catastrophe! As when, under thunder, a dam breaks. His mind was battling with the waters. What would it pick out as the main terror? The mud: the noise: dread always at the back of the mind? Or the worry! The worry! Your eyebrows always had a slight tension on them. . . . Like eye-strain!
The general had begun, soberly:
"You will recognize that there is nothing else that I can do."
His answering: