I was not anxious about them. I did not believe they would ever be sent out to fight. They were only in training now; they were in camp somewhere, Grandmother had said, Hugo in Essex, and Guy on Salisbury plain. I knew it took months to train soldiers, and they were officers; that took several years; the War would be over before they were ready to go out; that made it so silly. But I was disturbed and unhappy all the same.
When I got home I told Walter. I expected him to say too that it was foolish but he didn’t.
He was sitting at his writing-table in the study. He gave a sort of groan and buried his face in his hands.
‘We shall all have to go before it is done,’ he said, and then abruptly:
‘I don’t suppose I shall finish my book now—that is all wasted.’
My heart seemed to stand still. I felt as though I was in a nightmare suddenly trying to wake up; or as though I had woken up, very early, in the dark, and thought of death; a helpless desperate feeling, as though the earth were slipping away, as though one were going to fall into infinite space . . . and then I recovered; normality came back, and I was sure that Walter too was hysterical and unhinged.
I tried to laugh.
‘You are an old goose, Walter,’ I said, and I put my arm round him and kissed the top of his head.
He did not look up. He was looking straight in front of him.
He said: