“Entitled? Do you think anyone is entitled to what is going on out there?”

“Of course not. Every day, I treat men—and now it seems also women—whose psyches have been destroyed by what they’ve endured out there. But I can’t end the war.”

“What can you do?”

“I can alleviate suffering.”

“Alleviate mine!”

“You’re not sick!”

“So you refuse to help me?”

“Oh, I’ll help you, don’t worry. I’ll keep the secret of your charade to myself. But I can’t get you out of the war. You see, I’m rather good at my job. My patients tend to get better. To get you a discharge, you would have to be too sick to go back. That’s quite rare. It would require some first-rate acting on your part. And the decision is out of my hands. Of course, I can make a recommendation, but ultimately it’s the Medical Review Board that decides. You’d have to convince them, and they don’t like me very much.”

“Why is that?”

“Because no one else can replicate my success rate.”

“Your success rate!” he spat. “Tell me, how do you achieve your success rate?”

“The same way I’ve always done it. I hypnotize, and then I analyze.”

“So hypnotize me. I’ve asked you often enough—dozens of times, probably, and you always fobbed me off.”

“I didn’t fob you off.”

“Do it now. Don’t you think you owe me that much?”

Of course I owed him. I owed him everything, in a way. But crossing with him was out of the question. Obviously I didn’t want to cross with him only to be sent back to the trenches, who would? But equally I didn’t want him in my position, occupying my life, colonizing it. “Well, for one thing, you’re not sick. And for another, we know each other too well. As I’ve said to you many times, I don’t think you’re suggestible.”

“Oh, that’s nonsense.”

“Not at all. It’s a fact. Not everyone can be hypnotized.”

“How do you know I can’t? You’ve never even tried.”

“Well, even if I could, there’s another problem. You see, recently, treatment of shellshock has changed. When analysis doesn’t work, they send you off to electric shock therapy.”

“So they’re torturing men back into the trenches?”

“Precisely.”

“Ah,” he huffed, “you’re just making excuses.” He slumped back despondently in the couch. “I think you’re being most unreasonable. After all, I welcomed you when you were a nobody. I cared for you. I paid for your studies. I gave you your career. And the one time I ask you for help, you refuse me.”

“I’m not refusing you. I’m telling you I can’t give you a discharge.”

“Then hypnotize me, at least!” he shouted, loud enough for someone in the corridor to hear. The menace had returned, this time as more than a hint.