Captain Pile grunted. 'Where else had you in mind?'

Graham lit another cigarette. The dreadful man was right, of course. Hospital accommodation was as precious as anti-aircraft guns. It was Smithers Botham or nowhere.

'We'll have to make the most of it, I suppose,' he said resignedly. 'Baron Larrey did wonders for Napoleon's wounded in cowsheds.'

'Well, it's not my pigeon.' The captain was becoming impatient. 'You'll have to take up rebuilding problems direct with the Ministry. Have you seen enough? I've got to get back to the grindstone.'

Graham stopped half-way along the ward. He noticed a door with a cracked glass panel leading to a veranda under a rusty green-painted roof. It reminded him of a similar one in the sanatorium where he had been sent to die as a young man, a war ago. He wondered if that verandah were still there, and who was lying in his place to count the rivets of the roof in the feverish boredom of tuberculosis. As he turned away, another door with a small glass peephole caught his eye. He swung it open. A tiny high barred window disclosed a cubicle lined entirely with black padded leather, even the floor. A padded cell. Graham couldn't recall seeing one before.

'I expect you'll find a use for it,' Captain Pile suggested helpfully.

Graham walked back across the lawn in silence. It was all horribly depressing. But, he reminded himself, it was better than having to say 'Sir' to Haileybury.

4

By the first Christmas the war was still a novelty, something to expose the nation's pettiness rather than its greatness. Olympia housed not Bertram Mills' circus but Germans, Nazis interned with anti-Nazis in scrupulous British fairness. Dйbutantes put their hands enthusiastically to driving ambulances, and showgirls theirs slightly less so to the udders of cows.