I thought I had looked at every square inch of my shirt, but I looked at it a second time in order to make sure. I soon found a whitish elongated body clinging tightly to the cloth. Then I found another wedged into the seam.
Meanwhile, my neighbour, who had been tossing about restlessly and scratching himself and sighing with desperate vexation, lit his candle and began to search busily. The sound of an occasional crack showed how successful he was.
The night was warm and sultry. A storm threatened and it was necessary to close the tent flap. I blew out my candle and wrapped myself in my blankets. I was unable to stretch my legs because others were in the way. I was hemmed and pressed in on all sides. I felt an impulse to kick out savagely, but was able to control myself.
The stifling heat became unbearable, and at the same time the cold, clammy moisture from the soft sodden mud underneath began to penetrate ground-sheet and blankets.
The irritation recommenced. A louse so big that I could feel it crawling along stopped and drew blood. I tried in vain to go to sleep. I heard my neighbour scratching himself steadily. Nor could he find a comfortable position to lie in and kept twisting and turning and moaning. The other men were snoring or fidgeting restlessly.
At length a fitful slumber came upon me and a confusion of rotting bodies swarming with monstrous lice passed before my closed eyes. I was fully awake long before reveillé, sleepy and unrefreshed, and when reveillé came we received orders to move within two hours.
Four of us and one N.C.O. were left behind to load a lorry. And then we, too, packed up and set out to follow the unit.
Thinking to take a short cut across country we ascended the hill-slope, jumping and clambering across shell-holes and striding through long grass and weeds. Now and again we would chance upon some narrow winding track that soon lost itself again amid the tangled growth.
Low clouds burdened the sky and a fine rain began to fall. The top of the hill was hidden in grey mist.
We passed a heap of broken concrete blocks from which the twisted ends of iron rods projected. A little further on a concrete shelter stood intact except for deep vertical fissures. I peered into the narrow entrance that sloped steeply down. I slipped in the soft mud, but by stretching out my arms and clasping the outer wall I just saved myself from falling flat on to a rotting corpse that lay half-immersed in greenish-black water. I drew slowly back, feeling sick with horror.