I got into a corner by the door, so as to be out of the way, for I knew by experience that should there be in the room a choleric general, he would inevitably trip over the casually extended front wheel of my chair, greatly to the scandal of modest ears and to my own physical discomfiture.
Various seniors came up and passed the time of the day with me--one or two were bald-headed retired colonels of sixty, dressed in khaki, with belts like equators on a terrestrial globe and with a captain's three stars on their sleeves.

Gallant old boys, full of gout and softness, they had sunk their rank and taken whatever dull jobs, such as guarding internment camps or railway bridges, the War Office condescendingly thought fit to give them.

They listened sympathetically to my grievances, for they had grievances of their own.

When soldiers have no grievances the Army will perish of smug content.
"Why can't they give me a billet in the Army Pay and let me release a man sounder of wind and limb ?" I asked.

"What's the good of legs to a man who sits on his hunkers all day in an office and fills up Army forms?
I hate seeing you lucky fellows in uniform." "We're not a pretty sight," said the most rotund, who was a wag in his way.
Then we discussed what we knew and what we didn't know of the Battle of Ypres, and the withdrawal of our Second Army, and shook our heads dolorously over the casualty lists, every one of which in those days contained the names of old comrades and of old comrades' boys.