TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

ditto the Devonshire cream, though some of it hadn't
stood the journey well. His letter put me in the right
frame of mind for returning to tours of trenches,
though I should be sorry to say good-bye to young
Allgood, with whom I was spending most of my
spare time,

Allgood was quiet, thoughtful, and fond of watch-
ing birds. We had been to the same public school,
though there were nearly ten years between us. He
told me that he hoped to be a historian, and I
listened respectfully while he talked about the
Romans in Early Britain, which was his favourite
subject. It was easy to imagine him as an under-
graduate at Cambridge; travelling in Germany dur-
ing the Long Vacation and taking a good Degree.
But his Degree had been postponed indefinitely. He
said he'd always wanted to go to Germany, and there
seemed nothing incongruous in the remark; for the
moment I forgot that every German we killed was a
point scored to our side. Allgood never grumbled
about the war, for he was a gentle soul, willing to take
his share in it, though obviously unsuited to homicide.
But there was an expression of veiled melancholy on
his face, as if he were inwardly warned that he would
never see his home in Wiltshire again. A couple of
months afterwards I saw his name in one of the long
lists of killed, and it seemed to me that I had expected
it.

Our last day at the School was hot and cloudless.
In the morning English and French Generals rolled
up in their cars; there must have been about a hun-
dred of them; it was not unlike an army of uniformed

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