But I saw that he wore the claret-
colored ribbon of the V. C. on his khaki tunic. He gave me his name,
and said the papers had "done him proud," and that they had made a lot
of him at home--presentations, receptions, speeches, Lord Mayor's
addresses, cheering crowds, and all that. He was one of our Heroes,
though one couldn't tell it by the look of him.
"Now I'm going back to the trenches," he said, gloomily. "Same old
business and one of the crowd again." He was suffering from the
reaction of popular idolatry. He felt hipped because no one made a
fuss of him now or bothered about his claret-colored ribbon. The
staff-officers, chaplains, brigade majors, regimental officers, and
army nurses were more interested in an airship, a silver fish with
shining gills and a humming song in its stomach.
France . . . and the beginning of what the little V. C. had called
"the same old business." There was the long fleet of motor-ambulances
as a reminder of the ultimate business of all those young men in khaki
whom I had seen drilling in the Embankment gardens and shouldering
their way down the Strand.
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