Perhaps not fair, no, but the consideration of his debt was one of the ways that he had rationalized it at the end. When he had felt his fingers growing cold - or perhaps it was just his ability to sense them that had been fading? - he had consoled himself with the belief that there was a sort of justice to the fact that he had died in service of the country from whose very soil his physical material was derived. Blood and bone, he owed it all to England. Evidently it was not an arguement that Archie would understand -- nor ever could. He yet lived.

"I did not mean to inturrupt you - certainly not to this degree."

He gestured to the book upon the blanket and nodded. He was beginning the process of excusing himself.