LXXIII
France
August 22, 1918
Here I am lying flat on my tummy in the grass and spying on the enemy 2000 yards away. I shall be here for twenty-four hours. There's no sort of cover and the sun is scalding. Luckily we've found water in a captured village near by and I sent our linesmen to refill our bottles. There's a lull for the moment and we stretch ourselves out in weary contentment The body is a traitor to the spirit—it can become very tired.
I begin to see the end of the war. I can feel it coming as I never did before since I struck France. The unbelievable truth begins to dawn on me that we'll be coming back to you—that we shall wake up one morning to find that the world has no further use for our bombs and bayonets. Strange! After so much killing, to kill will be again a crime. We shall begin to count our lives in years instead of in days.
How will the pictures one's memory holds seem then? I can see, as I saw the other day, a huge German lying on the edge of a wheatfield. His knees were arched. He was on his back. His head rolled wearily from side to side. The thing that fixed my attention was a rubber groundsheet flung hastily across his stomach, whether in disgust or pity, I cannot say. I had my guns drawn up in column, my men mounted, all ready to trot into action—so I had no time for compassion or curiosity. But from my saddle I saw an infantryman raise the ground-sheet and underneath there was nothing but a scarlet gap. There were many sights like that that day. There have been many since then. I have seen as many parts of the human body that the beautiful white skin tents, as a student of anatomy. What hatred and injustice has preceded the making possible of such acts!
But in these places where horrors have been committed, the birds still flit about their nests. When the tanks and the cavalry and the guns have pushed forward, Nature returns to her task of beautifying the world.
How I would like to sit down and talk with you all. When the war is over I can see us going away to some quiet place and re-living the past and re-building the future with words. I may see you sooner than either of us expect; there's always the chance of a Blighty. So far, beyond an attack of trench-fever from which I've almost recovered, I've come through scatheless.
By the time this reaches you I shall be looking forward to leave. Casualties have thinned out the numbers on the leave-list and I stand fairly high now. I ought to see England again in October.