Combed Out

"I can see you haven't been out here long, and have never been in a proper raid. I'll never forget the last time we were bombed. We were out on rest about fifteen miles behind t...

It was good to have an hour's rest before us. As for the afternoon, well, there was no need to think about it, for it was still a long way off. Besides, somehow or other, the af...

"I reckon the longer yer out 'ere the windier yer get. I joined up in '14 like a bloody fool. At first I didn't care a damn for anything. Then I was wounded on the Somme an' sen...

I began to dress. I picked up my towel and soap and loosened the flap once again. I felt I had to go out and wash, for I had not washed at all on the previous day, fearing the d...

The newcomer's left leg was thickly bandaged, but the blood was oozing through and forming a pool on the table. When the bandage was removed, Captain Dowden examined the limb, b...

"'Ere, 'ere! That's the stuff to give 'em! I reckon Fritz is a bloody good sport. We ought ter shake 'ands an' make peace now. Peace at any price, that's what I say.... I tell y...

Three lorries arrived, our party was called out, we left the parade ground and scrambled into them. They quickly bore us to the place where we had worked the day before.

In the evening I did not wait in the dinner queue, but went to the St. Martin. It was kept by an old woman and her two daughters. They were tortured by anxiety:

"Two of our fellows--one of them pretty seriously. They could both walk though. A lot of men from other units have been killed. The last shell dropped into a mess-room and laid...

We descended the further slope by a narrow gulley. Here the shell-holes were less frequent. A miry path led through an abandoned camp--a chaos of riddled and shattered boards an...

"That is true, but what is the good of saying it, or thinking it! Ignorance, prejudice, and intellectual dishonesty are far stronger than you are. The depravity of mankind is su...

E-text prepared by Suzanne Lybarger, Melissa Er-Raqabi, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) from page images generously made a...

"That's all you can think about, getting drunk--you dirty little blackguard! You don't deserve to have peace, you don't! Bloody lot of fools--all shouting and singing and wantin...