I

I

The first few days were like lying in a boat. Drifting, drifting, I watched the high sunlit windows or the firelight that flickered and glowed on the ceiling when the ward was falling asleep. Outside the hospital a late spring was invading the home service world. Trees were misty-green and sometimes I could hear a blackbird singing. Even the screech and rumble of electric trams was a friendly sound; trams meant safety; the troops in the trenches thought about trams with affection. With an exquisite sense of languor and release I lifted my hand to touch the narcissuses by my bed. They were symbols of an immaculate spirit⁠—creatures whose faces knew nothing of War’s demented language.

For a week, perhaps, I could dream that for me the War was over, because I’d got a neat hole through me and the nurse with her spongings forbade me to have a bath. But I soon emerged from my mental immunity; I began to think; and my thoughts warned me that my second time out in France had altered my outlook (if such a confused condition of mind could be called an outlook). I began to feel that it was my privilege to be bitter about my war experiences; and my attitude toward civilians implied that they couldn’t understand and that it was no earthly use trying to explain things to them. Visitors were, of course, benevolent and respectful; my wound was adequate evidence that I’d “been in the thick of it,” and I allowed myself to hint at heroism and its attendant horrors. But as might have been expected my behaviour varied with my various visitors; or rather it would have done so had my visitors been more various. My inconsistencies might become tedious if tabulated collectively, so I will confine myself to the following imaginary instances.

Some Senior Officer under whom I’d served: Modest, politely subordinate, strongly imbued with the “spirit of the Regiment” and quite ready to go out again. “Awfully nice of you to come and see me, sir.” Feeling that I ought to jump out of bed and salute, and that it would be appropriate and pleasant to introduce him to “some of my people” (preferably of impeccable social status). Willingness to discuss active service technicalities and revive memories of shared front-line experience.

Middle-aged or elderly Male Civilian: Tendency (in response to sympathetic gratitude for services rendered to King and Country) to assume haggard facial aspect of one who had “been through hell.” Inclination to wish that my wound was a bit worse than it actually was, and have nurses hovering round with discreet reminders that my strength mustn’t be overtaxed. Inability to reveal anything crudely horrifying to civilian sensibilities. “Oh yes, I’ll be out there again by the autumn.” (Grimly wan reply to suggestions that I was now honourably qualified for a home service job.) Secret antagonism to all uncomplimentary references to the German Army.

Charming Sister of Brother Officer: Jocular, talkative, debonair, and diffidently heroic. Wishful to be wearing all possible medal-ribbons on pyjama jacket. Able to furnish a bright account of her brother (if still at the front) and suppressing all unpalatable facts about the War. “Jolly decent of you to blow in and see me.”

Hunting Friend (a few years above Military Service Age): Deprecatory about sufferings endured at the front. Tersely desirous of hearing all about last season’s sport. “By Jingo, that must have been a nailing good gallop!” Jokes about the Germans, as if throwing bombs at them was a tolerable substitute for foxhunting. A good deal of guffawing (mitigated by remembrance that I’d got a bullet hole through my lung). Optimistic anticipations of next season’s Opening Meet and an early termination of hostilities on all fronts.

Nevertheless my supposed reactions to any one of these hypothetical visitors could only be temporary. When alone with my fellow patients I was mainly disposed toward a self-pitying estrangement from everyone except the troops in the front-line. (Casualties didn’t count as tragic unless dead or badly maimed.)

When Aunt Evelyn came up to London to see me I felt properly touched by her reticent emotion; embitterment against civilians couldn’t be applied to her. But after she had gone I resented her gentle assumption that I had done enough and could now accept a safe job. I wasn’t going to be messed about like that, I told myself. Yet I knew that the War was unescapable. Sooner or later I should be sent back to the front-line, which was the only place where I could be any use. A cushy wound wasn’t enough to keep me out of it.

I couldn’t be free from the War; even this hospital ward was full of it, and every day the oppression increased. Outwardly it was a pleasant place to be lazy in. Morning sunshine slanted through the tall windows, brightening the grey-green walls and the forty beds. Daffodils and tulips made spots of colour under three red-draped lamps which hung from the ceiling. Some officers lay humped in bed, smoking and reading newspapers; others loafed about in dressing-gowns, going to and from the washing room where they scraped the bristles from their contented faces. A raucous gramophone continually ground out popular tunes. In the morning it was ragtime⁠—“Everybody’s Doing It” and “At the Foxtrot Ball.” (“Somewhere a Voice Is Calling, God Send You Back to Me,” and suchlike sentimental songs were reserved for the evening hours.) Before midday no one had enough energy to begin talking war shop, but after that I could always hear scraps of conversation from around the two fireplaces. My eyes were reading one of Lamb’s Essays, but my mind was continually distracted by such phrases as “Barrage lifted at the first objective,” “shelled us with heavy stuff,” “couldn’t raise enough decent N.C.O.s,” “first wave got held up by machine-guns,” and “bombed them out of a sap.”

There were no serious cases in the ward, only flesh wounds and sick. These were the lucky ones, already washed clean of squalor and misery and strain. They were lifting their faces to the sunlight, warming their legs by the fire; but there wasn’t much to talk about except the War.

In the evenings they played cards at a table opposite my bed; the blinds were drawn, the electric light was on, and a huge fire glowed on walls and ceiling. Glancing irritably up from my book I criticized the faces of the cardplayers and those who stood watching the game. There was a lean airman in a grey dressing-gown, his narrow whimsical face puffing a cigarette below a turban-like bandage; he’d been brought down by the Germans behind Arras and had spent three days in a bombarded dugout with Prussians, until our men drove them back and rescued him. The Prussians hadn’t treated him badly, he said. His partner was a swarthy Canadian with a low beetling forehead, sneering wide-set eyes, fleshy cheeks, and a loose heavy mouth. I couldn’t like that man, especially when he was boasting how he “did in some prisoners.” Along the ward they were still talking about “counterattacked from the redoubt,” “permanent rank of captain,” “never drew any allowances for six weeks,” “failed to get through their wire”⁠ ⁠… I was beginning to feel the need for escape from such reminders. My brain was screwed up tight, and when people came to see me I answered their questions excitedly and said things I hadn’t intended to say.

From the munition factory across the road, machinery throbbed and droned and crashed like the treading of giants; the noise got on my nerves. I was being worried by bad dreams. More than once I wasn’t sure whether I was awake or asleep; the ward was half shadow and half sinking firelight, and the beds were quiet with huddled sleepers. Shapes of mutilated soldiers came crawling across the floor; the floor seemed to be littered with fragments of mangled flesh. Faces glared upward; hands clutched at neck or belly; a livid grinning face with bristly moustache peered at me above the edge of my bed; his hands clawed at the sheets. Some were like the dummy figures used to deceive snipers; others were alive and looked at me reproachfully, as though envying me the warm safety of life which they’d longed for when they shivered in the gloomy dawn, waiting for the whistles to blow and the bombardment to lift.⁠ ⁠… A young English private in battle equipment pulled himself painfully toward me and fumbled in his tunic for a letter; as he reached forward to give it to me his head lolled sideways and he collapsed; there was a hole in his jaw and the blood spread across his white face like ink spilt on blotting-paper.

Violently awake, I saw the ward without its phantoms. The sleepers were snoring and a nurse in grey and scarlet was coming silently along to make up the fire.