human accidentals that make us all different beings destined to different acts, perhaps they have chosen their historian more or less rightly after all.

One caveat (as Mackwith would say) I must enter, however. This is with regard to my own Services in the War that is now over. Most of these services, though as a matter of fact performed in belt and khaki,[Pg 33] might just as well have been discharged in a dressing-gown, so unadventurous for the most part were they. Thanks to a "joy-ride," I did just see War, but for the rest I went where I was told to go and did what I was told to do. It is therefore just possible that from the point of view of those who lived in the hell I only briefly visited, one or two of my values may be a little "out." The North Sea cannot be quite the same to me that it was to Esdaile and Hubbard, the air means just what it meant to Maxwell and Chummy Smith. For this I am afraid there is no help. But there is always the chance that if I have minimized, they might have stressed a little unduly. For while our Case has nothing to do with War, War is always antecedent to it, as for a generation to come it will be antecedent to everything.

[Pg 33]

So, on this understanding, we may get on with the tale.

VIII

A slightly embarrassing little scene next took place in that breakfast-room in Lennox Street, Chelsea. Rooke had put down the Time Table, and Mollie Esdaile's face wore an expression of exasperation.

It appeared that Philip wanted to pack his family off according to program but wished to remain behind himself. For this he gave no reason—or rather he gave several reasons, all of the thinnest description.

"But how tiresome!" broke from Mollie. "Why on earth do you want to upset everything like this?"

Philip muttered something about the newly-arrived pictures needing a thorough overhauling.

[Pg 34]

[Pg 34]

"And the children all ready, all but their hats!" Mollie exclaimed.

"Better hurry them up.... At least seven of them are to frame too."

 Prev. P 17/207 next