Free Regeneration by Pat Barker

they need all this target practice is beyond me. They seem quite accurate enough as it is.’ His expression changed. ‘It was flooded. You stand the whole time. Most of the time in pitch darkness because the blast kept blowing the candles out. We were packed in so tight we couldn’t move. And they just went all out to get us. One shell after the other. I lost two sentries. Direct hit on the steps. Couldn’t find a thing.’
    ‘And you had forty-eight hours of that?’
    ‘Fifty. The relieving officer wasn’t in a hurry.’
    ‘And when you came out you went straight to the CCS?’
    ‘I didn’t go, I was carried.’
    A tap on the door. Rivers called out angrily, ‘I’m with a patient.’
    A short pause as they listened to footsteps fading down the corridor. Prior said, ‘I met the relieving officer.’
    ‘In the clearing station?’
    ‘No, here. He walked past me on the top corridor. Poor bastard left his Lewis guns behind. He was lucky not to be court-martialled.’
    ‘Did you speak?’
    ‘We nodded. Look, you might like to think it’s one big happy family out there, but it’s not. They despise each other.’
    ‘You mean you despise yourself.’
    Prior looked pointedly across Rivers’s shoulder. ‘It’s eleven o’clock.’
    ‘All right. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
    ‘I thought of going into Edinburgh tomorrow.’
    Rivers looked up. ‘At nine. ’
    ‘I can guess what Graves said. What a fine upstanding man I was until I fell among pacifists. Isn’t that right? Russell used me. Russell wrote the Declaration.’
    ‘No, he didn’t say that.’
    ‘Good. Because it isn’t true.’
    ‘You don’t think you were influenced by Russell?’
    ‘No, not particularly. I think I was influenced by my own experience of the front. I am capable of making up my own mind.’
    ‘Was this the first time you’d encountered pacifism?’
    ‘No. Edward Carpenter, before the war.’
    ‘You read him?’
    ‘Read him. Wrote to him.’ He smiled slightly. ‘I even made the Great Pilgrimage to Chesterfield.’
    ‘You must’ve been impressed to do that.’
    Sassoon hesitated. ‘Yes, I…’
    Watching him, Rivers perceived that he’d led Sassoon unwittingly on to rather intimate territory. He was looking for a way of redirecting the conversation when Sassoon said, ‘I read a book of his. The Intermediate Sex. I don’t know whether you know it?’
    ‘Yes. I’ve had patients who swore their entire lives had been changed by it.’
    ‘Mine was. At least I don’t know about “changed”. “Saved”, perhaps.’
    ‘As bad as that?’
    ‘At one point, yes. I’d got myself into quite a state.’
    Rivers waited.
    ‘I didn’t seem able to feel… well. Any of the things you’re supposed to feel. It got so bad I used to walk all night sometimes. I used to wait till everybody else was in bed, and then I’d just… get out and walk. The book was a life-saver. Because I suddenly saw that… I wasn’t just a freak. That there was a positive side. Have you read it?’
    Rivers clasped his hands behind his head. ‘Yes. A long time ago now.’
    ‘What did you think?’
    ‘I found it quite difficult. Obviously you have to admire the man’s courage, and the way he’s… opened up the debate. But I don’t know that the concept of an intermediate sex is as helpful as people think it is when they first encounter it. In the end nobody wants to be neuter. Anyway, the point is Carpenter’s pacifism doesn’t seem to have made much impression?’
    ‘I don’t know if I was aware of it even. I didn’t think much about politics. The next time I encountered pacifism was Robert Ross. I met him, oh, I suppose two years ago. He’s totally opposed to the war.’
    ‘And that didn’t influence you either?’
    ‘No. Obviously it made things easier at a personal level. I mean, frankly, any middle-aged man who Believed in The War would…’Sassoon skidded to a halt. ‘Present company excepted.’
    Rivers bowed.
    ‘I didn’t