“Because you’re going back to France!”
“Going back to France? When?”
“By the leave-boat to-night!”
Desmond smiled resignedly.
“My dear Chief,” he said, “you must be more explicit. What am I going back to France for?”
“Why, now I come to think of it,” replied the Chief, “I never told you. You’re going back to France to be killed, of course!”
“To be killed!”
Desmond looked blankly at the other’s blandly smiling face.
“Two or three days from now,” said the Chief, “you will be killed in action in France. I thought of making it a shell. But we’ll have it a machine gun bullet if you like. Whichever you prefer; it’s all the same to me!”
He laughed at the dawn of enlightenment in Desmond’s eyes.