TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

leave which was due to begin next day. I supposed
it would give me a chance to think out my position,
which was becoming a definite problem. So far my
ten weeks' respite had been mainly a pilgrimage in
pursuit of a ball, and I had familiarized myself with
the ups and downs of nearly all the golf courses
around Edinburgh. The man I played with most days
was an expert. He had been submarined on a hospital
ship, but this didn't prevent him playing a good
scratch game. His temper wasn't quite normal when
things went wrong and he looked like losing his half,
crown, but that may have been a peace-time failing
also. Anyhow he was exercising a greatly improving
influence on my iron shots, which had always been
a weak point, and I take this opportunity of thanking
him for many most enjoyable games. The way in
which fye laid his short approach shots stone-dead
was positively fiendish.

As a purely public character I was now a complete
back-number. Letters no longer arrived from utter
strangers who also wanted the War to stop. The only
one I'd had lately was from someone whose dottiness
couldn't be wholeheartedly denied. "My dear Boy,
or Man," it began, "on August 4th, 1914, I received
a message from Heaven in broad daylight, which told
me that Germany must go down for ever and Russia
will become rich. I have thirty relations fighting and
my business is ruined." He didn't tell me what his1
business was. I wondered how he'd got hold of my
address. ...

The man opposite me, an habitual humorist, re-
marked to the orderly who was handing him a plate
of steamed pudding, "Third time this week! I shall
write to the War Office and complain." I felt a
sudden sense of the unreality of my surroundings,

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