John: It makes the hell of a difference to me ... it’s hateful to talk about it ... but there it is.
Colin (gently): I’m interested.
John (responding): There were several of us, Colin, who used to talk about the whole thing out there; I mean, why the whole thing had happened, and what we were going to do about it when it was over ... a good many of us to start with ... we got fewer; the lucky ones were killed outright. Jack Bardsley got half his face blown away and can’t talk now; Peter Glen’s blind; Chris—Chris was engaged to a most attractive girl ... he was mad about her ... used to talk to her at night ... I heard him once, when he thought I was asleep—he got a bit of shrapnel in his stomach and thighs, and had to be cut away. He never married. Little Westerby’s mad.... I’m the only one left.... Sometimes I think I’ve got no right to be alive at all, Colin—just a fluke ... there are millions of my age, skull and bone and rotting flesh just under the earth over there....
[Colin has no answer ... the short silence is tense ... then he goes on more calmly.
If the war hadn’t happened I should have married Frankie; and gone into the business, and settled down to it ... but I can’t just go on using my life up aimlessly—or what seems to me aimlessly, as if nothing had happened ... to hear them talk—father and his lot, you’d think nothing had happened—my God!
It’s hard to talk about it; it’s hard to feel a thing very deeply, and talk about it, and not sound priggish; but I must talk to somebody; you’re the only one.
Colin: Thank you.
John: You’re an idealist, really. You wrote “A Pair of Pyjamas,” and you’ve made the devil of a lot of money, but you know the real worth of things; that’s why you get angry with me when I still care about ideals; it makes you uncomfortable; and you hate being uncomfortable, because you’ve made too much money.
Colin: I shall have another of your drinks and then I shall go.
John: For the love of God, don’t! Not till you need. Colin, things can’t go on like they are with me, I want your advice.