Regeneration by Pat Barker Page A

your patients, Rivers?’ asked Brock.
    The MOs were sitting round a table in Bryce’s room over coffee, as they did twice a week after dinner. These gatherings were kept deliberately informal, but they served some of the same purposes as a case conference. Since everybody had nowread The Times report, Bryce had asked Rivers to say a few words about Sassoon.
    Rivers kept it as brief and uncontroversial as possible. While he was speaking, he noticed that Brock was balancing a pencil between the tips of his extremely long bluish fingers. Never a good sign. Rivers liked Brock, but they didn’t invariably see eye to eye.
    A moment’s silence, after Rivers had finished speaking. Then Ruggles asked Bryce if the press had shown any interest. While Bryce was summarizing a conversation he’d had with the Daily Mail, Rivers watched Brock, who sat, arms folded across his chest, looking down his long pinched nose at the table. Brock always looked frozen. Even his voice, high, thin and reedy, seemed to echo across arctic wastes. When Bryce had finished, Brock turned to Rivers and said, ‘What are you thinking of doing with him?’
    ‘Well, I have been seeing him every day. I’m going to drop that now to three times a week.’
    ‘Isn’t that rather a lot? For someone who – according to you – has nothing wrong with him?’
    ‘I shan’t be able to persuade him to go back in less than that.’
    ‘Isn’t there a case for leaving him alone?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I mean, simply by being here he’s discredited. Discredited, disgraced, apparently lied to by his best friend? I’d’ve thought there was a case for letting him be.’
    ‘No, there’s no case,’ Rivers said. ‘He’s a mentally and physically healthy man. It’s his duty to go back, and it’s my duty to see he does.’
    ‘And you’ve no doubts about that at all?’
    ‘I don’t see the problem. I’m not going to give him electric shocks, or or subcutaneous injections of ether. I’m simply asking him to defend his position. Which he admits was reached largely on emotional grounds.’
    ‘Grief at the death of his friends. Horror at the slaughter of everybody else’s friends. It isn’t clear to me why such emotions have to be ignored.’
    ‘I’m not saying they should be ignored. Only that they mustn’t be allowed to dominate.’
    ‘The protopathic must know its place?’
    Rivers looked taken aback. ‘I wouldn’t’ve put it quite like that.’
    ‘Why not? It’s your word. And Sassoon does seem to be a remarkably protopathic young man. Doesn’t he? I mean from what you say, it’s “all or nothing” all the time. Happy warrior one minute. Bitter pacifist the next.’
    ‘Precisely. He’s completely inconsistent. And that’s all the more reason to get him to argue the position –’
    ‘Epicritically.’
    ‘Rationally.’
    Brock raised his hands and sat back in his chair. ‘I hope you don’t mind my playing devil’s advocate?’
    ‘Good heavens, no. The whole point of these meetings is to protect the patient.’
    Brock smiled, one of his rare, thin, unexpectedly charming smiles. ‘Is that what I was doing? I thought I was protecting you.’

Part 2
    __________________
    8
    __________
    Prior had lost weight during his time in sick bay. Watching the light fall on to his face, Rivers noticed how sharp the cheekbones had become.
    ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’
    ‘No, go ahead.’ Rivers pushed an ashtray across the desk.
    The match flared behind Prior’s cupped hands. ‘First for three weeks,’ he said. ‘God, I feel dizzy.’
    Rivers tried not to say, but said, ‘It’s not really a good idea with asthma, you know.’
    ‘You think it might shorten my life? Do you know how long the average officer lasts in France?’
    ‘Yes. Three months. You’re not in France.’
    Prior dragged on the cigarette and, momentarily, closed his eyes. He looked a bit like the boys you saw on street corners in the East End. That same air of knowing the price of