"She doesn't. She knows it's your body, not you. Your nerves are shaken to bits, that's all."
"I didn't funk, Anne." (He said it for the hundredth time.) "I mean I stuck it all right. I went back after I had shell-shock the first time—straight back into the trenches. It was at the very end of the fighting that I got it again. Then I couldn't go back. I couldn't move."
"I know, Colin, I know."
"Does Queenie know?"
"Of course she does. She understands perfectly. Why, she sees men with shell-shock every day. She knows you were splendid."
"I wasn't. But I wasn't as bad as she thinks me. … Don't let her see me if she comes back."
"She won't come."
"She will. She will. She'll get leave some day. Tell her not to come. Tell her she can't see me. Say I'm off my head. Any old lie that'll stop her."
"Don't think about her."
"I can't help thinking. She said such beastly things. You can't think what disgusting things she said."