TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

ley, and that isn't a first-class country either. You
might as well get the names right when you're talking
through your hat about things you don't under-
stand." What did it matter to David whether the
Oakley was bordered by the Grafton, Fitzwilliam,
and Whaddon Chase—none of which I'd ever hunted
with, but I knew they were good countries and I
didn't pretend that I wasn't interested in them, and I
strongly objected to them being sneered at by a crank
—yes, a fad-ridden crank—like David. "You're a fad-
ridden crank," I remarked aloud. But as he always
took my admonitions for what they were worth, the
matter ended amicably, and a minute later I was able
to remind him that he was going on parade without
a tie.

I have already said that, as a rule, we avoided war-
talk. Outwardly our opinions did not noticeably
differ, though his sense of "the regimental tradition"
was stronger than mine, and he "had no use for anti-
war idealism". But each of us had his own attitude
toward the War. My attitude (which had not always
been easy to sustain) was that I wanted to have fine
feelings about it. I wanted the War to be an impres-
sive experience—terrible, but not horrible enough to
interfere with my heroic emotions. David, on the other
hand, distrusted sublimation and seemed to want the
War to be even uglier than it really was. His mind
loathed and yet attached itself to rank smells and
squalid details. Like his face (which had a twist to it,
as though seen in a slightly distorting mirror) his
mental war-pictures were a little uncouth and out of
focus. Though in some ways more easily shocked than
I was, he had, as I once informed him, "a first-rate
nose for anything nasty". It is only fair to add that
this was when he'd been discoursing about the ubiquity

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