I wrote to Cousin Delia, and to Hugo, and to Guy. I meant to
write to George too, but there was an interruption, I forget
now what it was, and I put it off, and put it off again, and
did not write at all in the end.
Cousin Delia answered me first.
‘Yes, they are both gone,’ she said, ‘they had to go; there was,
of course, no choice. Guy will find something he has wanted,
I believe. I am more afraid for Hugo,’ and then she gave me their
addresses (though I had got them already from Grandmother) and
said she would like to see me soon; nothing about the War, or
what she felt about it all; that was like Cousin Delia too.
‘We have offered the house as a hospital, if they want it,’ she
said. ‘I don’t know if they will . . .’
Guy’s letter, too, was like himself.
‘DEAR HELEN,’ he wrote,—
‘Many thanks for yours. Yes, here we are really in for it at
last, or so it seems. I am having no end of a time at present.
My men are simply topping; makes one proud of one’s country,
and all that sort of thing, to see what its “men in the street”
are like. Funny too, to be doing the thing in earnest now, after
playing at it so often. We ought to get out fairly soon, as our
battalion was nominally on a war footing before, but you never
know. The beastly show may be over before we actually get there;
I should be sorry to miss it all now I’ve got so far.’
‘Poor old Hugo doesn’t seem to be enjoying himself much, but
I shouldn’t be surprised if he got out before us all the same.
The best chance is to be drafted out into the regular battalions,
I believe. You know George is down at Aldershot. I haven’t heard
from him since he got there . . .’
Hugo did not write for ten days; then it was a long letter.
‘DEAR HELEN,—
‘I was glad to get your letter. I have wondered how the War took
you. I am glad that you have stayed sane, and that you prefer
your baby to the world. That is as it ought to be after all.
‘We have most of us lost our heads, and what will come of it
all I don’t know. I feel a fraud drilling my wretched platoon,
inspecting their kit, seeing if they have tooth-brushes, that
they have polished their buttons, and mine too. I wonder what
it is all for, what it will all lead to. We say “for King and
Country”; we tell the poor beggars that, and they are as keen
as mustard, most of them, like children playing at a game; only
it is more than that, for they feel elated somehow, and raised
out of themselves, at least some of them do—I did at first too,
thought about being killed, and felt heroic. I don’t now; danger
seems very remote and discomfort very present, and I can’t believe
we shall ever get beyond this.
‘It is muddy here; all mud and flat dull fields, and when it
rains, as it did last week, the wet comes through the roof, and
we are uncomfortable and cross. It is an odd life. I don’t know
what to talk about; the Colonel is a regular, and so is one Lieutenant;
all the other officers are either recruits like me or Territorial
Reserve. They seem keen about everything, and the battalion in
particular, and they are most of them pleasant fellows enough,
but they make one feel a fool, and I don’t like the way they
talk; their values are so odd.
‘Guy is enjoying himself on Salisbury Plain. I haven’t heard
from George lately.’
I could picture Hugo better after reading it. He was still alone,
detached, half way between my attitude and Guy’s. I felt sorry
for him in his wet tent, inspecting tooth-brushes.