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By Root 1147 0

a pretty detailed account of Charles’ war, which is almost as vivid to me as “my” war. I find my memories of my two descents into Yugoslavia the most vivid of my life. If I were to forget those months, I would be forgetting events and people who formed me more fundamentally than any other. I suppose I could be regarded as lucky. I know that Charles thinks—or thought—that I was. “My” war was very different from his. I couldn’t say that I enjoyed “my” war, but it was certainly like being in a highly coloured dream, whereas I am afraid Charles’ war must have been like a long tedious nightmare. He had very much more than his fair share of boring repetitious slog, if you can agree that danger can be boring.

If I may intrude a personal note that is probably beyond what you asked for from me, I find the current scene frightening because yet again great numbers of young people, whether for or against war, whether they would welcome conscription or not, don’t know that the worst thing about war is that it can be so boring. I would never have believed that such a very short space of time—twenty-five years—would have again made it possible to see war as glamorous. The point is, you see, that “my” war was, rather, or for some of the time. Whereas Charles used to say that “his” war’s fortunes were maximum hard routine work, maximum physical discomfort, maximum boredom, and pretty steady doses of danger and death. This wasn’t necessarily true for all the men who got dealt his particular hand—Dunkirk, North Africa, Italy, Second Front. Some had quite extensive patches of respite and even enjoyment. But Charles’ luck was different. In fact it was a bit of a joke between us, when we traced his course of events, how he always seemed to have missed out on possible leave, or a lucky transfer to somewhere easier. We used to say that he had been fighting a modern war, for five years—I mean, of course, modern for then, he was fighting the Second World War—but that I had regressed to a much earlier style of war. Of course that is a pretty unsatisfactory generalisation when you think of the contribution guerrilla fighting made to our winning the war.

If Charles believes that I am dead, perhaps it might help to see that I am not?

Sincerely,

MILES BOVEY

DEAR DOCTOR X,

I am only too happy to come and see Charles any time it will help him. But I don’t want to bring James and Philip to see their father. I don’t think they ought to have that inflicted on them. I must say that I am surprised you suggest it at all. I know Charles is ill, but other people in the family are as important as he is. Of course it does not matter that it is painful for me to see Charles as he is now, but the boys are fifteen and fourteen years old and should be spared such things at their age. So I am afraid I am refusing to bring them.

Yours sincerely,

FELICITY WATKINS

DEAR DOCTOR Y,

Of course I am ready at any time to have my husband home. It will be very painful for us all, but I would do anything to help him get well again if you think it will help. I am sure that once he is in his own home and with his family and his own things around him he will remember who he is.

Yours sincerely,

FELICITY WATKINS

It was ten in the morning. In a large public room on the first floor, which overlooked a formal pattern of flowerbeds now dug over and left exposed to catch the first frosts, a couple of beeches in their end-of-year colouring, and some late-flowering roses, sat, or lounged, about forty or fifty people. None looked out of the windows. They were of any age, size, type and of both sexes. But the middle-aged predominated, and particularly, middle-aged women. Some watched television, or rather, since the programme had not yet started, were looking at the test picture, of some water rushing down over some rocks, under spring trees in full flower. Some knitted. Some chatted. It would be easy to think that one had walked into the lounge of a second-rate or provincial hotel, except for the characteristic smell of drugs.

There were tables as well as easy chairs dotted about