The Mirror in Room 22 [short story]

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There were not more than a half a dozen officers in the mess that Christmas Eve. The big comfortably furnished room, in spite of its gay decorations and blazing log fire, looked forlorn and a trifle bleak now that the usual noisy crowd was absent.

The six officers who, for one reason or another, were spending Christmas Day on the station, had finished dinner and arranged themselves in a semicircle before the fire. For once the radio was silent and the officers seemed content to watch the leaping flames in the brick grate and listen to the wind as it whistled round the massive old house which served as their mess.

Hopkins, red-faced with a big blond moustache, half wing and two gongs, remarked suddenly that he would be glad when the Squadron moved on.

The Adjutant, a trifle sleepy, reminded him that they had only just arrived.

“I don’t like this station,” Hopkinscomplained, stretching out his long legs and sliding farther down into his chair. “Of all the lonely, god-forsaken holes, this is it. Besides, this house depresses me.”

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