"Don't I! Don't I!"
And she said again: "Not yet."
Nicky had had leave for Christmas. He had come and gone.
Frances and Anthony were depressed; they were beginning to be frightened.
For Nicky had finished his training. He might be sent out any day.
Nicky had had some moments of depression. Nothing had been heard of the Moving Fortress. Again, the War Office had given no sign of having received it. It was hard luck, he said, on Drayton.
And John was depressed after he had gone.
"They'd much better have taken me," he said.
"What's the good of sending the best brains in the Army to get pounded? There's Drayton. He ought to have been in the Ordnance. He's killed.
"And here's Nicky. Nicky ought to be in the engineers or the gunners or the Royal Flying Corps; but he's got to stand in the trenches and be pounded.