A SON AT THE FRONT
work and the monotony of life in a war-zone town; and wondered whether, if this sort of thing went on, there might not soon be some talk of leave. And just at the end of his affectionate and unsatisfactory two pages, Campton lit on a name that roused him.
"I saw a fellow who'd seen Benny Upsher yesterday on his way to the English front. The young lunatic looked very fit. You know he volunteered in the English army when he found he couldn't get into the French. He's likely to get all the fighting he wants." It was a relief to know that someone had seen Benny Upsher lately. The letter was but four days old, and he was then on his way to the front. Probably he was not yet in the fighting he wanted, and one could, without remorse, call up an unmutilated face and clear blue eyes.
Campton, re-reading the postscript, was struck by a small thing. George had originally written: "I saw Benny Upsher yesterday," and had then altered the phrase to: "I saw a fellow who'd seen Benny Upsher." There was nothing out of the way in that: it simply showed that he had written in haste and revised the sentence. But he added: "The young lunatic looked very fit." Well: that too was natural. It was "the fellow" who reported Benny as looking fit; the phrase was rather elliptic, but Campton could hardly have said why it gave him the impression that it was George himself who had seen Upsher. The idea was manifestly absurd, since there was the length of the front between
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