Aug. 17. Wiring again in front of County Camp. Shelled off the job three times and had two casualties, so decided to work the wood instead—shelled again.
Aug. 18. Quiet night in the wood. Slowly and surely I am breaking up, and now I am so far gone that it is too much trouble to go sick. I am just carrying on like an automaton, mechanically putting up wire and digging ditches while I wait, wait, wait for something to happen—relief, death, wounds, anything, anything in earth or hell to put an end to this, but preferably death. I am becoming hypnotised with the idea of Nirvana—sweet, eternal nothingness. My body crawls with lice, my rags are saturated with blood, and we all “stink like the essence of putrefaction rotting for the third time.”
And there are ladies at home who still call us heroes and talk of the Glory of War—Christ!
Collins’ Geographical Establishment, Glasgow.
“If the lice were in their hair,
And the scabs were on their tongue,
And the rats were smiling there
Padding softly through the dung.
Would they still adjust their pince-nez