‘I’d slip away if I were you …’ But that hadn’t meant the man should simply turn tail and make a beeline. ‘Slip away’ implied some tact. Major Richards felt vaguely disappointed. Nonetheless, as he watched Jack walk away, he found himself oddly willing him on. He was walking in an intent, obstinate way, like some big child clinging to the absurd hope that he might be invisible. As a soldier might walk, Major Richards thought—though he’d never been in a position to see such a thing—from a battle. And there was no question of stopping him. You allowed in a civilian under the sway of great distress what you would never allow in a soldier facing possible imminent death. What you would never have allowed in any of these lads lying here in their shiny black hearses. When Jack reached the safety of the building, Major Richards felt a small flutter of relief, even of something like envy. * Derek Page and Dave Springer, the undertaker’s men from Babbages, also watched Jack turn and walk off across the grass, like a man, it seemed to them, who’d just remembered some other appointment.
