bonded duties

Echoing this constellation, a version of Mcllvaine, the narrator of The Waterworks, reappears in City of God, where he is visited by the Reverend Dr. Thomas Pemberton in a hospice replete with the generic blank stares of the pre-dead.

At twilight in the summer there is never anybody to fear—man, woman, or cat—in the chambers and at that hour the mice come out. They do not eat parchment or foolscap or red tape, but they eat the luncheon crumbs.

Missing in action are those who have been dropped from the muster-roll as missing in action, and have subsequently joined again. … If the missing in action, or desertion, and the return to the company, both occur in the quarter, it is not necessary to note them; in other words, it is not necessary that the soldiers should be dropped and taken up again on the same return.