I sit in my pajamas, with the letters in my hand, and wonder how long it is going to last. Another week or so and we shall have had two years of it. Most of us have gone home on leave. Counting the commander, there are—let me see—four of us left of the original crowd. It is over a year since I applied for leave. Nothing will come of it. I look into the future and see myself, a gray elderly failure, still keeping a six-hour shift on a Mediterranean transport, my life spent, my friends and relatives all dead, Angus and his chums gone west, and a new generation coming out, with vigorous appetites for fresh provisions.
And then the door opens and lets in a slight uniformed figure with a grip in his hand and a familiar smile on his face. Lets in also liberty, freedom, pay-day, England, Home and Beauty.
It is my relief, arrived at last!
II
We greet each other shyly, for the chief and some of the others are standing in the alleyway, with broad grins on their faces at my look of flabbergasted bewilderment. An Arab porter comes along with a big canvas bag of dunnage, which he dumps at our feet.
‘Why—what—how—when—did you get here?’ I ask weakly.
‘Train from Alexandria,’ he replies, sitting down on the settee.
My kitten, a sandy little savage known as O’Henry, jumps up and begins to make friends. O’Henry is stroked and tickled, and Tommy looks up at me with his old tolerant, bland, imperturbable smile.
‘You, of all people!’ I remark, looking at him inanely.
‘Aye, they sent me out,’ he affirms. ‘They told me you were here. How’s things?’