‘I know,’ she said. ‘I have seen some of it already. There were some my first month—blinded—it seemed so soon.’
And I thought:
‘Could Hugo be blinded?’
I was glad to have seen Mollie. She brought the War home to me more clearly than anything else had done. She understood what it meant, how dreadful it was, and yet she was sane. I wondered if I could help in a Hospital too; but I was nursing Eleanor still, and very much tied.
I went for a time with Mrs. Sebright and sewed shirts; then I did bandages myself, at home, instead.
In January, Guy crossed to France; George Addington sailed for Gallipoli in April; Hugo’s battalion went out as a reinforcement in the second battle of Ypres.
I did not see any of them before they went.
XI
That Easter we went away for a week. Walter was so tired, I was anxious about him. He had extra work at the University, for several of the lecturers had gone to the War, the young unmarried ones, and he was working at his book on inscriptions as well, in the evenings chiefly. He would go straight upstairs to the study after dinner and work till late.
‘I may not have time to finish it,’ was all he said when I urged him not to. ‘I must work while I can.’