TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

effectively!). After saying that I couldn't have given
him anything which he'd value more highly, he sug-
gested that I might do worse than adopt the Army as
a permanent career (forgetting that I was nearly ten
years too old for such an idea to be feasible). But no
doubt I was glad to be going to the Depot for a few
days, so as to have a good crack with some of my old
comrades, and when I got to Cambridge I must make
myself known to a promising young chap (a grandson
of his cousin, Archdeacon Crocket) who was training
with the Cadet Battalion. After a digression around
this year's fruit crop, conversation turned to the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury's message to the nation about
Air Raid Reprisals. In Captain Huxtable's opinion
the Church couldn't be too militant, and Aunt Evelyn
thoroughly agreed with him. With forced facetious-
ness I described my own air-raid experience. "The
cashier in the bank was as cool as a cucumber/' I
remarked. There were cucumber sandwiches on the
table, but the implications of the word "cashier" were
stronger, since for me it was part of the price of mar-
tyrdom, while for the Captain it epitomized an outer
darkness of dishonour. But the word went past him,
innocent of its military meaning, and he referred to
the increasing severity of the German air-raids as
"all that one can expect from that gang of ruffians".
But there it was, and we'd got to go through with it;
nothing could be worse than a patched-up peace; and
Aunt Evelyn "could see no sign of a change of heart
in the German nation".

The Captain was delighted to see in to-day's Times
that another of those cranky pacifist meetings had
been broken up by some Colonial troops; and he
added that he'd like to have the job of dealing with a
"Stop the War" meeting in Butley. To him a con-

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