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the war.’ His near-lidless eyes stared round. ‘Maybe all this means I’m on my way back again?’
    ‘They’ll notice a change in you,’ said Peter Thomas crisply.
    It was a remark in the spirit of annex D. The men had grown a shell of arrogance towards the world which had brought them to such straits. To be pitied was so unbearable, any eye sensed to be softening with compassion fired only an explosion of rudeness. The nurses got used to it—if they didn’t, Graham had them shifted to more conventional wards. The elderly hospital padre found his attempts to ‘cheer up the poor boys’ so unwelcome, his Christian fortitude collapsed beneath him and he avoided the place. Even well-meaning ladies with baskets of gifts saw them accepted without a flicker of gratitude.'After all, the patients felt the country owed them more for their pains than a few bars of chocolate.
    ‘I suppose I’ve caught it pretty badly?’ Bluey hazarded.
    ‘Oh, I’ve seen worse,’ Peter Thomas told him with an air of authority.
    ‘When did they get you?’
    ‘I was one of the earliest. I’ve been in here so long I’m practically one of the staff.’
    ‘What’s happening outside? Nobody’s told me any news.’
    ‘The Germans seem to be crying off. In daylight, at any rate.’
    ‘That’s funny. I thought we’d go on like that. Flying every day till the end of the war.’ They stopped at Bluey’s bed, the last before the partition dividing off the operating theatre. ‘I was just starting to believe in my luck.’
    ‘If you like, I’ll see if I can find a newspaper,’ Peter Thomas offered helpfully. ‘Though the selection isn’t very uplifting. There’ll probably be a Daily Press, which is good for at least one laugh.’
    ‘Thanks. I reckon I’ve a lot to catch up.’
    Bluey sat on his bed and inspected his surroundings. There was no need for mirrors in annex D. He could see himself in the monstrosities all round him. He suddenly realized he was an outcast, a frightening object, something to make any man wince and any woman run away in horror. For the first time the bitterness of his humiliation swept over him. He wanted to cry in self-pity. But his lachrymal glands were burnt, and even to weep was impossible.
     

CHAPTER SIX
     
    BRIGADIER HAILEYBURY was a fair-minded man. He knew Trevose was a prima donna, unwilling or temperamentally unable to fit into any co-ordinated effort, even to win a war. And of course Pile didn’t help. The fellow was unbelievably stupid. But the line must be drawn somewhere. Authority must be established. On the morning following Bluey’s arrival he appeared at Smithers Botham to make his first inspection of the annex.
    He could readily believe Pile’s account of indiscipline among Graham’s patients. He needed only to recall the notorious laxity of Graham’s own life before the war. It would have to be checked, even if it meant a row. Haileybury was aware that he and Graham had quarrelled every second time they met and recalled uneasily that he himself generally got the worst of it. Trevose had a quick tongue, and a slick way of putting things. But now Haileybury told himself he was dressed in authority —which was neither little, nor, in view of the summer’s military disasters, likely to be brief.
    He marched across the lawn with Captain Pile, admiring the flower-beds. As the operating theatre now blocked one end of the annex, entrance was between the horse-box lavatories and the kitchen, where twice daily the nurses portioned out food dispatched from the central Smithers Botham kitchens in reputedly heatproof trolleys. As the pair entered, the door of the washroom opened and Graham himself appeared. He was wearing a surgeon’s green gown with a gauze mask dangling below his chin, and seemed busy.
    ‘Haileybury, I was delighted to learn of your impending visit,’ he began affably. ‘I’d been hoping you’d look us up all summer.’
    ‘I’m glad to find you so cheerful,