"So I was sent back," he continued, "and I was glad of it. I can't tell you how glad. I did not want to go to war. I was afraid. That is the truth. I was afraid. And when the doctor said I would not do, I could have cheered. The doctor was sorry for me, and I pretended to be sorry, also, but not too sorry, for he might have passed me.
"I went home. I was safe. I did not have to fight. I did not have to be killed. I did not have to be ashamed, for the doctors had turned me back. Well, I was ashamed. My country was in danger. The Germans were in France. And I was at home. But I was afraid. There you have it, I was ashamed because I would not fight for my country, my country that needed me, and I was afraid to fight. I was afraid to be hurt. I was afraid to die.
"Do you remember when they called the 1917 class a year ahead of time? I went then. I volunteered. God, what a struggle that was! I walked the road to the caserne with the sweat running off me. For a year I had dreamed nightly of the shells. I had heard them. They had fallen around me. I had been wounded. I had felt the impact of the steel on my yielding flesh. For a year I had spent my days trying to hide my terror from my wife, my friends and my neighbors. And all the time my country had called. Fear and shame! Fear and shame! My country called and I was afraid to go!
"For a man who loves his country, there is nothing harder than to be a coward and know it. I went at last because I could not stand the torture of failing to do my duty. No one else knew. I had been sent back by the doctors. I was blameless before the community. But I knew it was because I was afraid to be hurt, afraid to die. So when they called the class 1917 I went.
"They sent me to Verdun. Can you imagine what that meant to me? It was in the very midst of the German attack on the left bank of the Meuse. I had been drafted into a veteran regiment with a lot of others to help fill up the gaps, and I joined just in time to go into the front line.
"You know how the papers were filled at that time with the terrors of the Verdun fighting. It was not of the bravery of our troops that I read, but of the terrors. I don't know how I ever got into line on the day we marched from the rear to go to the front. Everything I did was mechanical. We were called before daylight; we had a cup of coffee; we were marching along the road.
"I had managed it up to then without giving myself away. True, I talked little to my comrades, and probably that saved me. But the morning we marched to the front, what saved me then I don't know, except possibly because I said nothing. I was unable to speak. I was numb with fear. I was sick. My stomach turned. I walked with my head down and my feet dragged like great weights.
"You know, at that time you could always hear at Verdun the pounding of the big guns. I had heard it for days, while my regiment was in repose. I used to go out in the woods by myself and listen to it and terrify myself by thinking what it would be like to be under that rain of shells. A foolish thing to do, but for more than a year, nearly two years, I had been under the obsession of my fear. I could no longer control it."
III—"WE WERE MARCHING TO INFERNO"