but which would gradually
gain, had already begun to gain, a set expressionlessness that overlaid
and strangely neutralised its grins and its laughter.

Blind men's faces may have beauty, even vivacity, or a heightened
intelligence and fire; but there is a something, hard to define, of
which they are sadly devoid. The windows of the soul are dimmed. The
face inevitably changes. And if even I, who knew not Briggs, could
perceive that Briggs's face must thus have changed, how much more
conspicuous would the change be to the partner whom Briggs had left
seven months before and to whom I was now leading him back--his wife.

Briggs, a civilian once more, sported reach-me-down garments which
fitted him surprisingly--our Clothing Store sergeant is the kindest of
souls and expends infinite patience on doing his best, with
government-contract tailoring, to suit all our discharges. His overcoat,
which might have been called a Chesterfield in Shoreditch, pleased
Briggs, as he told me in the car: he drew my attention to its texture
and warmth, he admiringly fingered it. "I might ha' paid thirty bob for
that there top-coat," he surmised. "A collar an' a tie an' all, too!
Them boots ain't so dusty, neither: they fit me a treat. Goin' 'ome to
my missus in Sunday clobber, I am." You would have said that he thought
he had emerged from his hazards with rather a good bargain. A jumble of
ready-made clothes--and a pension! The visible world gone for ever!
These were his souvenirs of the great war. And, "Ah," he said, when I
ventured on some allusion to his blindness, "it might ha' bin worse. I
don' know what I'd ha' done if I'd lost a leg, same as some of them
other poor jossers in th' hospital!"

(And this, marvellous though it sounds, is the standpoint of no small
number in the legion of our Briggses.)

The motor ride was another source of gratification to Briggs. Seated
beside me, the wind beating on his sightless orbs, he discoursed of the
wonders of petrol. "Proper to take you about, them cars. W'ere are we
now? 'Ave we far to run, like?" I told him we were traversing Battersea
Park and that our destination was St. Pancras. It transpired that he was
a stranger to London. This drive through London was, as it were, an item
in his collection of experiences, to be preserved with the cross-channel
voyage and the vigils in the trenches. "Shall we go by Buckingham
Palace?" I told him we shouldn't; then, observing that he was
disappointe