for the best. Some men joke and smile; but their mirth is forced. Some
feign stoical indifference, and sit with a paper and a pipe; but as a
rule their pipes are out and their reading a pretence. There are few
men, indeed, whose hearts are not beating faster, and whose nerves are
not on edge.

But you can't call this "the fear of death"; it is a purely physical
reaction of danger and detonation. It is not fear of death as death.
It is not fear of hurt as hurt. It is an infinitely intensified
dislike of suspense and uncertainty, sudden noise and shock. It
belongs wholly to the physical organism, and the only cure that I
know is to make an act of personal dissociation from the behaviour of
one's flesh. Your teeth may chatter and your knees quake, but as long
as the real you disapproves and derides this absurdity of the flesh,
the composite you can carry on. Closely allied to the sensation of
nameless dread caused by high explosives is that caused by gas. No one
can carry out a relief in the trenches without a certain anxiety and
dread if he knows that the enemy has gas cylinders in position and
that the wind is in the east. But this, again, is not exactly the
fear of death; but much more a physical reaction to uncertainty and
suspense combined with the threat of physical suffering.

Personally, I believe that very few men indeed fear death. The vast
majority experience a more or less violent physical shrinking from
the pain of death and wounds, especially when they are obliged to be
physically inactive, and when they have nothing else to think about.
This kind of dread is, in the case of a good many men, intensified
by darkness and suspense, and by the deafening noise and shock that
accompany the detonation of high explosives. But it cannot properly be
called the fear of death, and it is a purely physical reaction which