Several voices muttered "Thank God," but one man's teeth were still chattering as though he was so absorbed by his own fear that he had not noticed the disappearance of its cause. Soon there was complete silence and one by one we fell asleep.
Another clear day and another clear night. We lay awake listening anxiously to the bursting of bombs and the muttering of anti-aircraft fire. But we went to sleep in the end and felt drowsy all the following day—a clear day. Casualties came in from a camp that had been bombed overnight, and we saw shattered limbs, smashed heads, and lacerated flesh. Several of our men were looking pale through lack of sleep and had dark rings round their eyes.
Another clear night. The agonizing vigil began again, but I was so weary that I went to sleep a few minutes after lights out. Sullen thunders mingled with my dreams and did not wake me up.
Another clear day. Would the fine weather never end? Late in the afternoon, however, a few clouds collected on the horizon. In the evening the entire sky was overcast and not a star was to be seen. And as we went to bed we heard the rain swishing down upon the canvas roof. The unspeakable joy we all felt at the prospect of an untroubled night!
"Bloody fine, this rain: we'll get some proper sleep now, thank God. I never had the wind up so much in all my life, and I've been out here since '15 and in some pretty hot places too."
"I reckon the longer yer out 'ere the windier yer get. I joined up in '14 like a bloody fool. At first I didn't care a damn for anything. Then I was wounded on the Somme an' sent across to Blighty. I dreaded comin' back agin. I only 'ad a little wound in me 'and, an' I used ter plug it wi' dubbin' an' boot-polish ter keep it raw. It didn't 'alf 'urt, but it gave me a extra week or two in 'orspittle. I 'ad to go in the end though—the M.O. didn't 'alf give me a tellin' orf. Jesus Christ, didn't I 'ave the wind up when we went up the line! An' now I'm scared at the slightest sound, an' I sometimes wake up out o' me sleep shiverin' all over. When I was on leave a motor-car backfired in the street—it didn't 'alf make me jump; me mate 'oo was with me said I looked as white as a sheet. The longer yer out 'ere the worse yer get—it's yer nerves, yer know, they can't stand it. In the line it's always the new men what's the most reliable...."
"That's a bloody fact. When we first come out, I thought all the Belgian civvies a lot o' bloody cowards takin' cover whenever Fritz came over. We used to stand an' look at 'im. They wasn't cowards, it was us who was bloody fools. They knew summat about it, we didn't. All the same, I know one or two old reg'lars 'oo was in it from the first an' never 'ad the wind up any time—there's not many like that though, generally it's the old soldiers what's the worst o' the lot for wanglin' out o' risky jobs."
"Napoleon was right," observed a small, red-haired lance-corporal, whose remarks generally had a sardonic touch, "when he said the worse the man the better the soldier. It's only people who have no imagination and no intelligence who are courageous in modern war. Nobody with any sense would expose himself unnecessarily and rush a machine-gun position or do the sort of thing they give you a V.C. for. Of course, there are a few cases where it's deserved, and it isn't always the one who deserves it that gets it. I'm quite certain the refined, sensitive, imaginative kind of man is no good as a soldier. He may be able to control himself better than the others at first—educated people are used to self-control—but in the long run his nerves will give way sooner. Moral courage is a thing I admire more than anything, but there's no use for it in the army, in fact it's worse than useless in the army. The man who's too servile to be capable of feeling humiliation and too stupid to understand what danger is—that's the man who makes a good, steady soldier. We've seen men so horribly smashed up by bombs that it makes you sick to look at them, and then people expect us not to be afraid of air-raids. The civvies haven't seen that sort of thing, so they may well show plenty of pluck, although I believe there are a good many with enough imagination to have the wind up when there's an air-raid on."
"Bloody true. You know, if there was a lot o' civvies an' a lot of Tommies in a Blighty air-raid, I reckon the civvies'd show more pluck than the Tommies. My mate who's workin' on munitions told me 'e saw 'underds o' soldiers rushin' to take shelter in the last raid on London. O' course there was crowds o' civvies doin' the same, but 'e says there was a lot what didn't seem to care a damn. The other day we 'ad a bloody parson spoutin' to us—'e said war brings out a man's pluck an' makes an 'ero of 'im. I reckon that's all bloody tosh! War makes cowards of yer, that's the 'ole truth o' the matter, I don't care what yer say. I didn't know what fear was afore I joined the army. I know now, you bet! I'm a bloody coward now—I don't mind admittin' it. There's things I used ter do what I wouldn't dare do now. When we go up the line I'm in a blue funk from the time I 'ears the first shell burst to the time we goes over the top. An' when we goes over I forgets everythink an' don't know what I'm doin'. P'raps I'll get a V.C. some day wi'out knowin' what I done ter get it. And I'm not the only one like that. Anyone 'oo's bin out 'ere a few months an' says 'e ain't windy up the line's a bloody liar, there now...."
"By the way," I interrupted, "how did that orderly who works in the theatre get his Military Medal—he had the wind up more than any of us the other night?"