Page "Lord Peter Wimsey" Paragraph 14

In 1918, Wimsey was severely wounded by artillery fire near Caudry in France.

He suffered a breakdown due to shell shock ( which we now call post-traumatic stress disorder but which was then often thought, by those without first-hand experience of it, to be a species of malingering ) and was eventually sent home.

After the war he was ill for many months, recovering at the family's ancestral home in Duke's Denver, a fictional setting — as is the Duchy of Denver — about 15 miles ( 24 km ) beyond the real Denver in Norfolk, on the A10 near Downham Market.

Wimsey was for a time unable to give servants any orders whatsoever, since his wartime experience made him associate the giving of an order with causing the death of the person to whom the order was given.

Bunter arrived and, with the approval of the Dowager Duchess, took up his post as valet.

Bunter moved Wimsey to a London flat at 110A Piccadilly, W1, while Wimsey recovered.

Even much later, however, Wimsey would have relapses — especially when his actions caused a murderer to be hanged.

As noted in " Whose Body?

", on such occasions Bunter would take care of Wimsey and tenderly put him to bed, and they would revert to being " Major Wimsey " and " Sergeant Bunter ".