'That's a very high rank.' Haileybury was shocked. 'Quite a number of senior men are coming in as majors.'

'Then it's out of the question.'

Why, he would be subordinate to Haileybury! Even if he, too, became in time a brigadier, the fellow would by then be a general, or some such. He would have to call the bloody man 'Sir'! A grisly thought.

'Totally out of the question,' Graham repeated. 'I was a civilian in the last war and I'd best stay a civilian in this one. I'm not the military type.'

Haileybury sipped his sherry with a pained look. 'Neither are most young men in the country, but they are finding themselves obliged to be.'

'I hope you're not suggesting I lack a sense of duty?'

'I am suggesting nothing of the kind,' said Haileybury patiently. 'If anything, I am suggesting you lack a sense of perspective. I made my offer because I thought, firstly, it was in the best interests of the Army, and secondly, it was in the best interests of yourself. You turned it down with hardly a second thought.'

Graham sat looking surly. Haileybury saw the delicately built-up reconciliation was about to come down with a crash.

'Perhaps I am pressing you too severely,' he retreated. 'I cannot expect you to decide on such a far-reaching matter in a couple of minutes. Please excuse my unreasonableness,' he apologized with unexpected good grace. 'Perhaps you will accept it as evidence of my enthusiasm for your services? Telephone me in a day or two, when you've mulled it over. Here is the number of my extension.'

Haileybury spent the rest of the meeting talking about the disastrous effect of the war on county cricket, a topic Graham found painfully boring.

3

'Trevose?' asked Captain Cuthbert Pile of the Royal Army Medical Corps, sitting in his office at Smithers Botham. 'Trevose? Never heard of him. What's he want, Corporal?'