When I got back to camp all the men were out at work. I sat down alone in my tent. I felt slightly dazed, but not as miserable as I had expected to feel. I did not know how to occupy my time. I had brought several books with me, but I felt no inclination to read. Life seemed empty and purposeless. I waited impatiently for the return of the others.
They arrived and the evening passed quickly in talk. My friend, whose place was next to mine, remarked that I was far more cheerful than men returning from leave usually are.
The next day and many days after I was unable to shake off the feeling of mental torpor and a vague regret for what had been and what had gone for ever. My leave seemed like a thing I had dreamt of long ago. Sometimes I asked myself in a puzzled manner: "Have I really been home on leave?"
The end of the war, no one could tell when that would be. But the next leave—it might come in eight or nine months—that was something to look forward to and I began to think of all the things I would do when it actually did come.
IX
ACROSS THE RIDGES
"And Cuchullain ... deemed it no honour nor deemed he it fair to take horses or garments or arms from corpses, or from the dead."
(Tain Bo Cuailgne, 5th Century).
There were only a few stars visible above, but the whole eastern horizon was flashing and scintillating. Down in the valley, where several British batteries were in action, long thin jets of flame darted forth incessantly.