Then there was the Horse. “It’s extraordinary how chivalry and ... and ... decent behaviour ... and everything should be taught us by that old creature with his funny, long face—but it’s true all the same. It’s only because we use horses so little in fighting now that ‘frightfulness’ has begun.”
Teresa felt disappointed; but, after all, what had she expected?
“But it was a funny time—the old War. All these tunes—rag-times and Violet Lorraine’s songs—hearing them first at the Coliseum or Murray’s, and then on one’s gramophone in the trenches ... it gave one a feeling ... I don’t know!” and he broke off with a laugh.
“I know! Tunes ... it is very queer,” murmured Teresa.
It struck her with a stab of amusement that her tone of reverent sympathy was rather like Jollypot’s—always agog to encourage any expression of the pure and poetical spirit that she was sure was burning in every young male bosom.
“Yes, it was ... an extraordinary time—for all of us; but for you in the trenches! And all that death—I’ve often wondered about that; how did it strike you?”
“Oh, well, that was nothing new to me—I mean some people hadn’t realised till the War that there was such a thing; but my old Nanny died when I was nine—and then, there was my mother.”
He paused; and then in quite a different tone he said:
“Did it used to scare you stiff when you were a child if you heard the clock strike midnight?”