The evacuated Blackfriars staff fitted in as best they could, the matron numbering among the first horrors of war her charges having to sleep without their usual collective chastity belt of spiked railings. But there were unlooked-for rural compensations-fresh air, a croquet lawn, tennis courts, even a cricket pitch, where the more athletic housemen took their exercise in the mornings and the more amorous ones took their girl-friends at night. And everyone agreed the flap would be over by Christmas, in spring they'd be home again in London.

Graham Trevose looked at his wristwatch. Ten past two. 'I suppose Captain Pile knows I'm waiting?'

'He's very busy just now, sir.'

'My own time's not exactly valueless, you know,' Graham told him, not as unkindly as he might.

The old man looked wearier than ever. 'There's a war on, sir.'

Graham winced. He always did at the expression which had come to excuse any incompetence or incivility. Instead of replying he sat resignedly on a short wooden bench, eyeing a red-and-white poster telling him his cheerfulness, his courage, and his resolution would give them victory. In a spot like Smithers Botham, he felt he was going to need all three.

2

Graham Trevose was odd man out, as usual.

The Second World War found the British Government prepared to take a more tolerant view of many things than during the First. Conscientious objectors were allowed to fight fires in preference to the enemy, soldiers' mistresses (if reasonably permanent) were given an allowance, and where the cure for hysteria in British soldiers at Ypres was a British bullet, by Dunkirk 'psychological exhaustion' had become entirely respectable. The Government had a particular new enthusiasm for plastic surgery. Men with faces smashed on the Somme were, if lucky, returned home looking grotesque, and if unlucky, either died or recovered so splendidly they were sent back to present another target.



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