corker in the lead, turns towards it, striding high-hipped and more manly than any man, the others in her train. They are living in that precise moment of the earthly revolution when colour fades, silver nitrate dusts the grass and the gravel surrounding the hall, and gathers in drifts along the ditches — all is resolved into dark shapes and quaint silhouettes . .We ’ad t’do it, didn’t we, Ordree? Gracie says out of the blue — and, despite the unexpectedness of this remark, Audrey knows of what she speaks, so, drawing Gracie tightly to her, close enough to feel the eccentric beat of her toxified heart, she replies, Yes, we ’ad t’do it, we ’ad t’do our bit, no matter what we thought about the sheer folly of it, and the dunderheaded vanity, we ’ad to set aside our own ambitions for the duration — we couldn’t abandon ’em over there. Dear Gracie whimpers, An’. . an’ I’m awlright, ain’t I, Ordree? Audrey recalls the peachy young thing in suffragette colours that she met at the WSPU meeting near Arnold Circus and is grateful that eventime has drained Gracie’s skin so she can with conviction say —. I say, says a one-legged boy with officer’s crowns on his collar and a comical fez on his head, who leans against the wall of the hall, you gels have a confounded cheek! The others have clattered inside and now the Honeysuckle and the Rose blooms out from the open door. — We’ve an absolutely spiffing feed all set out, and you’re loitering out here gassing. The boy’s jaunty air, the flash of the monocle across his breast as he swings round on his crutch to usher them in — are the false notes plucked upon his broken body. The cold black barrels of his pupils bore into his ghostly face. . Chu Chin Chow. There is indeed a spiffing feed: bottles of ale and ginger beer, pots of meat paste, four large cottage loaves and a tin basin full of éclairs. We scrounged ’em from a baker’s in Sidcup, the boy explains, juggling himself between his crutch and a laughable pipe he should ’ave a rattle . .Chappie said we were robbing him out of house and home, but when I marched the whole squad on to the premises, well, he could hardly refuse us — sacrifice an’ all that argy-bargy. . He falls silent as the singing lulls to an end, its short-lived harmony supplanted by the ceaseless monotony of the anti-aircraft batteries at Eltham Palace. In here Audrey sees there is colour: the blacked-out windows have been dressed with red, white and blue bunting, as have a framed photograph of Queen Alexandra and a framed text of the Lord’s Prayer. There are poesies of summer wildflowers tied with ribbon to the chair backs — it’s as gay as all get out, apart from the vellum faces of the poor cows, and the broken and bandaged bodies of the British bulldogs — whose hair shocks from tightly wound crêpe, their faces are masked by it, their arms are slung in it, and, as Audrey travels from wound to wound, the Tommies commence their own miserable rondeau: We’re ’ere because we’re ’ere because we’re ’ere! to the accompaniment of Jews’ harps, mouth organs improvised from combs and tissue paper, and the grim drubbing of an upright long past tunefulness: Rainin’, rainin’, rainin’, always bloomin’ well rainin’, Rainin’ all the mornin’, Rainin’ all the night. . is seamlessly joined, then smoothly gives ground to: Where are our uniforms? Far, far a-waay, When will our rifles come, p’raps, p’raps one da-aay —. Why, asks Gertie the corker, do they still sing these songs? They’re home now. . A chubby-faced sergeant hangs on her words but cannot answer — has he not noticed the orange tint to her exuberant locks, or wondered why she wears white cotton gloves to nosh on an éclair? He sweats copiously, labouring over his next breath, H’herrr, h’herrr, spittle greenish and blood-flecked gathering at the corners of his mouth. B’herrr, he manages, b’herrr — then fights his way through the tangles of tobacco smoke to the door and is gone, heaving, into the night air. Audrey ignores Gertie’s question — because surely it’s obvious: they sing the songs of over there, because from now on and forever they will remain over there — this is no quick turn, the chairman will never hammer them off. There’s no escaping it — lying in flooded shell hole or bloodied dugout, the sleepers can never awake! Every faltering trump must surely be their last — yet still another h’herrr comes, there’s no gassing — they’re all gas cases . .The Welsbach mantle in its wire globe flares brighter than the sun, Missus Varley, her face caricatured by Bass — Insist on Seeing the Label! — stares through the cracked pane of forced gaiety at Audrey, who sinks down on to a providential chair and discovers herself eye-level with the groin of the boy-amputee. He — or a draper’s assistant — has pinned the trouser leg up under the skirts of his tunic so that it appears that half his leg remains, but now, from the way the cloth lies flat, Audrey can tell it’s all gone. Behind the complexities of his button fly she knows of this: the aimless target of traumatised flesh and sawn bone, his poor little ding-dong a’donging down there in the dark, boneless, never able to support him . .She leans forward, hugging her nausea to her breast, seeing amputees hung about with false legs: the pleats of an irrational dress that hides where they are divided. Her breath catches, then curdles in her throat — the hands that Gracie stilled go to work again, finding a plastic wheel and twisting this, seeking out a moulded handle and yanking that. The tabletop tips water into a lap that’s ceased to exist — for she’s lying flat on her back with the young officer saying, Are you all right, Miss Death? She thinks: How does he know my name? She thinks: there was smoke from his pipe and the fags of the others, smoke caught and combed in and over and pulled through, and now there filters through the disinfection of the ward this litany: Guards, No. 6, No. 10, Peter Stuyvesant, Kensitas, Senior. . Senior. . and again: Guards, No. 6, No. 10, Peter Stuyvesant, Kensitas, Senior. . Senior. . Busner is strongly inclined to supply the Service, what harm can there be in it? It’s so very sad to hear this plaint of longing from the next bed, as he bends to the handle and cranks this one upright. Since he’s resumed smoking Busner sees smoke everywhere — although the patients are forbidden to in the dormitories, he sees it here as well, bluey-grey and strained by the white bars of the bedsteads, curling up brownish to satirise the fire-resistant ceiling tiles — above this hypocritical ceiling what? the original Victorian plasterwork, egg-and-dart, scrolls and scallops. . petrified smoke. Her paper-thin eyelids crinkle — but don’t retract. Marcus has been enthroned on an easy chair dragged in from the day-room, and Busner bows to him, saying, She’s extremely elderly now, as you can see. Marcus holds a mug — Tottenham Hotspur’s cockerel prances around it. He deigns, Yes, well. . obviously. I mean, she was well advanced in middle age before the war. Well preserved, though, had a head still — full head. . of striking red hair. She’ll need some consoling for its loss. Busner is grateful the older man is talking to him at all, I need consoling for my loss. Biddable patients are rewarded by the nurses with cigarettes — latterly they’ve had to reward him as well. Dazedly, Busner examines her: blood pressure, pulse, instead of an intrusive thermometer a damp hand against her dry forehead. Eyes shut, Audrey listens to his huffing — smells it smoky and sour. She has no patience for his air of perpetual bumptiousness — already she understands that he expects a lot of her, and if she struggles to make sense of this strange new world it is only in order to deny him. .