My Rage Outweighs My Shame, As Always

The Days, The Weeks, The Years Out Here Shall Come Back Again, And Our Dead Comrades Shall Then Stand Up Again And March With Us, Our Heads Shall Be Clear, We Shall Have A Purpose, And So We Shall March, Our Dead Comrades Beside Us, The Years At The Front Behind Us:—against Whom, Against Whom?

It's All Rot That They Put In The War-news About The Good Humour Of The Troops, How They Are Arranging Dances Almost Before They Are Out Of The Front-line. We Don't Act Like That Because We Are In A Good Humour: We Are In A Good Humour Because Otherwise We Should Go To Pieces.

Modesty And Conscientiousness Receive Their Reward Only In Novels. In Life They Are Exploited And Then Shoved Aside.

The Room Shall Speak, It Must Catch Me Up And Hold Me, I Want To Feel That I Belong Here, I Want To Hearken And Know When I Go Back To The Front Line That The War Will Sink Down, Be Drowned Utterly In The Great Home-coming Tide, Know That It Will Then Be Past For Ever, And Not Gnaw Us Continually, That It Will Have None But An Outward Power Over Us...nothing Stirs; Listless And Wretched, Like A Condemned Man, I Sit There And The Past Withdraws Itself. And At The Same Time I Fear To Importune It Too Much, Because I Do Not Know What Might Happen Then. I Am A Soldier, I Must Cling To That.

It Is Just As Much A Matter Of Chance That I Am Still Alive As That I Might Have Been Hit. In A Bomb-proof Dug-out I May Be Smashed To Atoms And In The Open May Survive Ten Hour's Bombardment Unscratched. No Soldier Outlives A Thousand Chances. But Every Soldier Believes In Chance And Trusts His Luck.