I know of one who during a great attack operated for forty-eight hours
on end and finally went to sleep where he stood from utter weariness.
The picture that forms in my mind of these women is absurd, Arthurian
and exact; I see them as great ladies, mediaeval in their saintliness,
sharing the pollution of the battle with their champions.

Lying here with nothing to worry about in the green serenity of an
English summer, I realize that no man can grasp the splendour of this
war until he has made the trip to Blighty on a stretcher. What I mean
is this: so long as a fighting man keeps well, his experience of the
war consists of muddy roads leading up through a desolated country to
holes in the ground, in which he spends most of his time watching
other holes in the ground, which people tell him are the Hun
front-line. This experience is punctuated by periods during which the
earth shoots up about him like corn popping in a pan, and he
experiences the insanest fear, if he's made that way, or the most
satisfying kind of joy. About once a year something happens which,
when it's over, he scarcely believes has happened: he's told that he
can run away to England and pretend that there isn't any war on for
ten days. For those ten days, so far as he's concerned, hostilities
are suspended. He rides post-haste through ravaged villages to the
point from which the train starts. Up to the very last moment until
the engine pulls out, he's quite panicky lest some one shall come and
snatch his warrant from him, telling him that leave has been
cancelled. He makes his journey in a carriage in which all the windows
are smashed. Probably it either snows or rains. During the night
while he stamps his feet to keep warm, he remembers that in his hurry
to escape he's left all his Hun souvenirs behind. During his time in
London he visits his tailor at least twice a day, buys a vast amount
of unnecessary kit, sleeps late, does most of his resting in