The bomb had driven some splinters of glass and corrugated iron into Teddy’s wrist; it seemed a small place at first; it didn’t trouble him for weeks.  But then some dirt got into it.

In the narrow cobbled street beyond the station he had happened upon a woman who knew no English, but who took him to a priest, and the priest had hidden him.

Letty did not piece together the whole story at first.  She did not want the story very much; she wanted to know about this hand and arm.

There would be queer things in the story when it came to be told.  There was an old peasant who had made Teddy work in his fields in spite of his smashed and aching arm, and who had pointed to a passing German when Teddy demurred; there were the people called “they” who had at that time organised the escape of stragglers into Holland.  There was the night watch, those long nights in succession before the dash for liberty.  But Letty’s concern was all with the hand.  Inside the sling there was something that hurt the imagination, something bandaged, a stump.  She could not think of it.  She could not get away from the thought of it.

“But why did you lose your hand?”

It was only a little place at first, and then it got painful....

“But I didn’t go into a hospital because I was afraid they would intern me, and so I wouldn’t be able to come home.  And I was dying to come home.  I was—­homesick.  No one was ever so homesick.  I’ve thought of this place and the garden, and how one looked out of the window at the passers-by, a thousand times.  I seemed always to be seeing them.  Old Dimple with his benevolent smile, and Mrs. Wolker at the end cottage, and how she used to fetch her beer and wink when she caught us looking at her, and little Charlie Slobberface sniffing on his way to the pigs and all the rest of them.  And you, Letty.  Particularly you.  And how we used to lean on the window-sill with our shoulders touching, and your cheek just in front of my eyes....  And nothing aching at all in one....

“How I thought of that and longed for that!...

“And so, you see, I didn’t go to the hospital.  I kept hoping to get to England first.  And I left it too long....”

“Life’s come back to me with you!” said Letty.  “Until just to-day I’ve believed you’d come back.  And to-day—­I doubted....  I thought it was all over—­all the real life, love and the dear fun of things, and that there was nothing before me, nothing before me but just holding out—­and keeping your memory....  Poor arm.  Poor arm.  And being kind to people.  And pretending you were alive somewhere....  I’ll not care about the arm.  In a little while....  I’m glad you’ve gone, but I’m gladder you’re back and can never go again....  And I will be your right hand, dear, and your left hand and all your hands.  Both my hands for your dear lost left one.  You shall have three hands instead of two....”

Section 13