Echoes of the War

by J. M. Barrie

'Shut up, father!'

'You've begun, you see. Don't worry, Roger. Any rawness I might feel in having missed the chance of seeing whether I was a man—like Coxon, confound him!—is swallowed up in the pride of giving the chance to you. I'm in a shiver about you, but—It's all true, Roger, what your mother said about 2nd Lieutenants. Till the other day we were so little of a military nation that most of us didn't know there were 2nd Lieutenants. And now, in thousands of homes we feel that there is nothing else. 2nd Lieutenant! It is like a new word to us—one, I daresay, of many that the war will add to our language. We have taken to it, Roger. If a son of mine were to tarnish it—'

'I'll try not to,' Roger growls.

'If you did, I should just know that there had been something wrong about me.'

Gruffly, 'You're all right.'

'If I am, you are.' It is a winning face that Mr. Torrance turns on his son. 'I suppose you have been asking yourself of late, what if you were to turn out to be a funk!'

'Father, how did you know?'

'I know because you are me. Because ever since there was talk of this commission I have been thinking and thinking what were you thinking—so as to help you.'

This itself is a help. Roger's hand—but he withdraws it hurriedly.

'They all seem to be so frightfully brave, father,' he says wistfully.