§ 2
And on the third evening, the Brigade wound slowly across the bridge, past the lake and under the fir trees, till their wheels raised the soft dust along the path road to Deepcut Barracks.
Alice and Patricia and Peter’s children watched them as they came. To the children, it was all excitement; they waved to the horsemen, to the dusty limber-gunners trudging the little slope. Better than lead soldiers, those real playthings! But to the two women, the end seemed very near.
Each in her own way; grave, the one—with her white frocked daughters beside her; moist-eyed the other—thinking of her child to be—they resented this new world, that would so soon tear their men-folk from them, leaving nothing to hope for save the comfort of pencilled letters, the joy of snatched “leaves,” and always, defying comfort, lurking behind joy, fear—the fear of the telegram!
§ 3
Very often, through that June and July and August of 1915, Patricia regretted her decision to share house with Alice. Their red-brick villa among the dusty pine-trees held no chance of privacy; always, it seemed to Patricia, horses and grooms waited by the laurels before its door; always came visitors—of a morning, of an afternoon, of an evening—to the communal lunch-table, to tea, and drinks after tea, to dinner and drinks after dinner: always they were playing bridge, or preparing sandwiches for field-days among the heather, or listening to long talks between man and man. . . .
No privacy! It seemed to her as though they lived at a boarding-house of which she were proprietress; Peter only an occasional guest.
For now, work and equipment so crowded on the Brigade that our Mr. Jameson entirely forgot, in his concentration on the immediate job, the job which he had left behind him!
§ 4
Reminder, a blow straight between the eyes, took the form of an “express” letter, addressed in Simpson’s crabby handwriting and brought over from the Orderly Room to the crowded Mess where Peter was snatching tea. He slipped it, unopened, into his tunic-pocket, went on talking to Torrington and Bromley.