Rolling onto one side he groped for the rumpled package on the nightstand and fished out the last of the French cigarettes he had bought in Port Vendres after crossing the border. It was an obligation to the men of the O’Hara Detachment of the International Brigade to whom cigarettes had been more important than cartridges for their Mausers. “Smoke some decent fags for me and the lads,” Corporal Knott had told him on the morning he had left with the pack mules and the stretcher cases for Tarragona. He smoothed the cigarette with his fingers, lit it with a match, took a few puffs, and then ground it out in a crystal ashtray. His final link with Spain snuffed out. Dead in the bowl of glass as surely as the corporal and his men were dead by now in the bomb-holed wastes along the Ebro. A servant brought coffee in a silver pot, toast, and a newspaper on the stroke of seven. He was dressed and shaved by then, standing by the open windows and looking out on the magnificent grounds of Abingdon Pryory.
