I broke off; it was hard to speak with conviction.
"I am afraid," the girl moaned, "so terribly afraid. At the front I used to be proud of having less nerves than the other girls. But to sit still, in the dark, and wait for death.... I never imagined anything so terrible. Do.... do you know that I have to keep a tight hold on myself to keep myself from screaming?"
"Yes," I said, "and I want to tell you, Marjorie, that I think it's wonderful how well you take it. I've seen men get hysterical with much less reason!"
"And you?" asked Marjorie, "aren't you afraid of death?"
"When it comes, yes," I answered. "But this job of ours, my dear, teaches us to live for the present and let the future take care of itself. At the front the worst part of a push was the waiting for it; when the whistles went and the barrage lifted one forgot all one's doubts and fears. And the only way to get through that bad afternoon before zero hour was to live for the moment, concentrate on the petty fatigues and annoyances of humdrum life and to decline to cross one's bridges until one came to them...."
"But aren't you fond of life?"
"It's no good being fond of anything on this earth," I told her, "because you're irredeemably compelled to lose it in the end...."
The girl was silent. Somewhere in the cave there echoed the melancholy drip of water.
"Have you ever been in love?" she asked suddenly.
Of course I have, the same as everybody else. But she was not content with generalities. I had to tell her about a girl at Darjeeling, when I was a young sub., whose abrupt change of mind had once and for all put all idea of matrimonial bliss out of my head.