TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

I replied, mumbling, that in such surroundings it
wouldn't be easy to worry about anything; and then
the old Earl came out on to the terrace, pushing the
wheeled apparatus which enabled him to walk.

Often during the next three weeks I was able to for-
get about the War; often I took refuge in the assuasive
human happiness which Nutwood Manor's hospitality
offered me. But there were times when my mental
mechanism was refractory, and I reverted to my
resolution to keep the smoke-drifted battle memories
true and intense, unmodified by the comforts of con-
valescence. I wasn't going to be bluffed back into an
easy-going tolerant state of mind, I decided, as I
opened a daily paper one morning and very deliber-
ately read a despatch from "War Correspondents3
Headquarters".

"I have sat with some of our lads, fighting battles
over again, and discussing battles to be," wrote some
amiable man who had apparently mistaken the War
for a football match between England and Germany.
uOne officer—a mere boy—told me how he'd run up
against eleven Huns in an advanced post. He killed
two with a Mills' bomb (cGrand weapon, the Mills'!'
he laughed, his clear eyes gleaming with excitement),
wounded another with his revolver, and marched the
remainder back to our own lines. . . ." I opened one
of the illustrated weeklies and soon found an article on
"War Pictures at the Royal Academy". After a
panegyric about ""Forward the Guns!" (a patriotic
masterpiece by a lady who had been to the Military
Tournament in pre-War days) the following sentence
occurred: "I think I like Mr. Blank's eContalmaison'
picture best. He almost makes one feel that he must
have been there. The Nth Division are going over the
second line. I expect—the tips of their bayonets give

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