John.
Yes. Once I was in a trench the Germans had enfiladed. They’d got the line exactly. The shells fell one after another, first at the end of the trench, and then they came slowly down. One could calculate almost mathematically when the shell must come that would blow one to smithereens.
Mrs. Wharton.
[With a little gasp of terror.] Oh, John, don’t!
John.
[Smiling.] Well, something went wrong, or else I certainly shouldn’t be here now.
Colonel Wharton.
Do you mean to say you weren’t frightened?
John.
Frightened isn’t the word for it. Talk of getting the wind up: it was a perfect hurricane. I felt as though I were shrinking up so that my clothes suddenly hung about me like sacks. And against my will a prayer came to my lips. From long habit, I suppose, they tried to form themselves into an appeal to God to turn the shell away. I had to fight with myself. I had to keep saying to myself: “Don’t be a fool. Don’t be a damned fool.”