. . . He imagined she had gone into retreat. She had said she was going. For the rest of the war. . . . For the duration of hostilities or life, whichever were the longer. . . . He imagined Sylvia, coiled up on a convent bed. . . . Hating. . . . Her certainly glorious hair all round her. . . . Hating. . . . Slowly and coldly. . . . Like the head of a snake when you examined it. . . . Eyes motionless: mouth closed tight. . . . Looking away into the distance and hating. . . . She was presumably in Birkenhead. . . . A long way to send your hatred. . . . Across a country and a sea in an icy night. . . ! Over all that black land and water . . . with the lights out because of air-raids and U-boats. . . . Well, he did not have to think of Sylvia at the moment. She was well out of it. . . .
It was certainly getting no warmer as the night drew on. . . . Even that ass Levin was pacing swiftly up and down in the dusky moon-shadow of the last hutments that looked over the slope and the vanishing trail of white stones. . . . In spite of his boasting about not wearing an overcoat: to catch women's eyes with his pretty Staff gadgets he was carrying on like a leopard at feeding time. . . .
Tietjens said:
"Sorry to keep you waiting, old man. . . . Or rather your lady. . . . But there were some men to see to. . . . And, you know . . . 'The comfort and—what is it?—of the men comes before every—is it "consideration"?—except the exigencies of actual warfare' . . . My memory's gone phut these days. . . . And you want me to slide down this hill and wheeze back again. . . . To see a woman! . . ."
Levin screeched: "Damn you, you ass! It's your wife who's waiting for you at the bottom there."
