Chapter 726 A New Georgy-girl:>Ep22

• It was no surprise at all to me that none of my fellow troop commanders and their men were re-upping either; they were done too; the enlisted men had done their stint, they were sick of the army's 'hurry-up and wait' bullshit, and the long periods of dusty boredom interspersed with truly terrifying episodes of panicked combat against a fanatic rabble who didn't care if they were killed as long as they could get through our lines and kill us.
• *****
• Arriving back home was a strange, almost surreal experience. For the first time in my life there was absolutely no sense of dad's presence; before, even if he was with the regiment, or home but out with the estate management people miles away, I always knew he was there, somewhere, I don't know how, I just did, the house just felt like him. Now, nothing, and it was weird, unsettling, wrong. Mother was expecting me, but not for a few more days, I'd told her I was going to spend some time in Gibraltar doing the tourist thing, maybe get around a few beers, and do what everyone does for entertainment and lob fruit at the apes just to watch the little bastards fight over them and knock the paste out of each other, but I changed my mind, so I was about a week early.