“Clean enough?”
I could not follow the drift of his question, and he tried to explain himself.
“Oh, I don’t mean the soap and water business. But morally, spiritually, intellectually, and all that? Some of us will want a lot of scrubbing before we sit down in our nice little Christian families, somewhere at Wimbledon or Ealing. Somehow I funk peace. It means getting back again to where one started, and I don’t see how it’s possible.... Good Lord, what tripe I’ve been talking!”
He pulled the bow of one of the “Waacs” and undid her apron.
“Encore une bouteille de champagne, mademoiselle!” he said in his best French, and started singing “La Marseillaise.” Some of the officers were dancing the fox trot and the bunny hug.
Brand rose with a smile and a sigh.
“Armistice night!” he said. “Thank God there’s a crowd of fellows left to do the dancing.... I can’t help thinking of the others.”
He touched a glass with his lips to a silent toast, and I saw that he drank to ghosts. Then he put the glass down and laid his hand on Clatworthy’s shoulder.
“Care for a stroll?” he said. “This room is too fuggy.”
“Not I, old lad,” said the boy. “This is Armistice night—and the end of the adventure. See it through!”