“Raney, you must!,” I said. “I’m going through the worst time of my life, something more awful than I thought could ever happen to me. If you knew . . .”
“You can lend me some pyjamas, I suppose?,” he interrupted in a changed voice. “I’ll have my gear sent round in the morning. I’m sorry, George. To the best of my poor ability, you know I’ll see you through to the grave and beyond.”
3
As I waited in the hall, I drafted a telegram to explain that I was being called away from London on business. O’Rane arrived in the middle; and I led him at once to his room. I could not unburden myself yet; and, as we drove out of London next day, I found it necessary to pretend that I was enquiring into unemployment.
“Bertrand’s afraid the men will get out of hand,” I explained.
I might have said that in some parts of England the men were already out of hand. It was at this time that the “Homes for Heroes” campaign was launched: as the government failed to provide sufficient houses, a homeless band of Welsh quarrymen seized a public hall and announced that they would stay there until cottages had been built for them. They were led by a man, then unknown, named John Griffiths, who followed up his first success by organizing similar raids on any convenient unoccupied land. No one was paying much attention at present; as Bertrand said, we were resigned to unemployment in London, but danger would march hand-in-hand with winter, when the government declared its housing-policy and when the official leaders of labour indicated whether they supported “Griffiths’ landgrabbers.”
“Where are you making for first?,” O’Rane asked.
Until that moment I had not thought of any destination.
“We’re half way between Reading and Hungerford. I don’t know. . . . I’ve had a bit of a shock; and you’ll find me rather disjointed. . . . God! I don’t know what I should have done without you!,” I broke out.
O’Rane’s fingers rested for a moment on my arm: