I was bewildered at first; I could not understand at all. I had
seen the posters calling for recruits; I had seen the recruits
drilling; but that too had seemed in its way remote; it had not
occurred to me somehow that people of my own might go. I remember
being glad, in the first days of all, that I had no one in the
army. It had once been thought of for Guy, and I thought, ‘what
a good thing Guy is not a soldier’; and then I felt ashamed at
my own selfishness, for other people were soldiers, who mattered
really as much.
And now I thought, it seems dreadful to say it, but I thought,
‘How silly of Guy and Hugo!’
And I thought:
‘That is just the side of them that Walter doesn’t like—fantastic—out
of touch with reality.’
And I thought:
‘It is play acting, a little bit, and I always denied they did
that. It would be much better if Hugo got a sensible job at last,
and if Guy stuck to his law; he was getting on very well.’
I was not anxious about them. I did not believe they would ever
be sent out to fight. They were only in training now; they were
in camp somewhere, Grandmother had said, Hugo in Essex, and Guy
on Salisbury plain. I knew it took months to train soldiers,
and they were officers; that took several years; the War would
be over before they were ready to go out; that made it so silly.
But I was disturbed and unhappy all the same.
When I got home I told Walter. I expected him to say too that
it was foolish but he didn’t.
He was sitting at his writing-table in the study. He gave a sort
of groan and buried his face in his hands.
‘We shall all have to go before it is done,’ he said, and then
abruptly:
‘I don’t suppose I shall finish my book now—that is all wasted.’
My heart seemed to stand still. I felt as though I was in a nightmare
suddenly trying to wake up; or as though I had woken up, very
early, in the dark, and thought of death; a helpless desperate
feeling, as though the earth were slipping away, as though one
were going to fall into infinite space . . . and then I recovered;
normality came back, and I was sure that Walter too was hysterical
and unhinged.