its Winterbournes nothing, and that it has been ruled by grotesques and a groaning Civil Service of disheartened men and women, while the young have simply chucked up the job in despair. _Gott strafe England_ is a prayer that has been fully answered—by the insanity of retaining the old Winterbourne grotesques and pretending they are alive. And we go on acquiescing, we go on without even the guts to kick the grotesque Aunt Sallies of England into the Limbo they deserve. _Pero, pacienza. Mañana. Mañana_.... * * * * * I sometimes think that George committed suicide in that last battle of the war. I don’t mean shot himself, but it was so very easy for a company commander to stand up when an enemy machine gun was traversing. The situation he had got into with Elizabeth and Fanny Welford was not inextricable, but it would have needed a certain amount of patience and energy and determination and common sense to put right. But by November ’18 poor old George was whacked, whacked to the wide. He was a bit off his head, as were nearly all the troops after six months in the line. Since Arras (April ’17) he had lived on his nerves, and when I saw him at the Divisional Rest Camp in October ’18, he struck me as a man who was done for, used up. He ought to have gone to the Brigadier and got sent down for a bit. But he was so horribly afraid of being afraid. He told me that last night I saw him that he was afraid even of whizz-bangs now, and that he didn’t see how we would face another barrage. But he was damned obstinate, and insisted on going back to the battalion, although he knew they were due for another battle. We lay awake half the night, and he went over Elizabeth and Fanny and himself, and himself and Fanny and Elizabeth until it was such a nightmare, such a portentous house of Atrides tragedy, that I began to think myself that it was hopeless. There was a series of night-bombing attacks going on, and we lay in the darkness on sacking beds, muttering to each other—or rather George went on and on muttering, and I tried to interrupt and couldn’t. And every time a bomb fell anywhere near the camp, I could feel George start in the darkness. His nerves were certainly all to pieces.