What Comfort There Is In The Skin

Little By Little Things Began To Assume A New Aspect. The Sense Of Insecurity Vanished, Words Came Of Themselves, I Was No Longer So Painfully Conscious Of Everything I Said. I Drank On And Felt The Great Soft Wave Approach And Embrace Me; The Dark Hour Began To Fill With Pictures And Stealthily The Noiseless Procession Of Dreams Appeared Again Superimposed On The Dreary, Grey Landscape Of Existence.

In Any Case, The Bayonet Isn't As Important As It Used To Be. It's More Usual Now To Go Into The Attack With Hand-grenades And Your Entrenching Tool. The Sharpened Spade Is A Lighter And More Versatile Weapon - Not Only Can You Get A Man Under The Chin, But More To The Point, You Can Strike A Blow With A Lot More Force Behind It. That's Especially True If You Can Bring It Down Diagonally Between The Neck And The Shoulder, Because Then You Can Split Down As Far As The Chest. When You Put A Bayonet In, It Can Stick, And You Have To Give The Other Man A Hefty Kick In The Guts To Get It Out.

And Even If These Scenes From Our Youth Were Given Back To Us We Would Hardly Know What To Do. The Tender, Secret Influence That Passed From Them Into Us Could Not Rise Again. We Might Be Amongst Them And Move In Them; We Might Remember And Love Them And Be Stirred By The Sight Of Them. But It Would Be Like Gazing At The Photograph Of A Dead Comrade; Those Are His Features, It Is His Face, And The Days We Spent Together Take On A Mournful Life In The Memory; But The Man Himself It Is Not.

Life Did Not Intend To Make Us Perfect. Whoever Is Perfect Belongs In A Museum.

Bombardment, Barrage, Curtain-fire, Mines, Gas, Tanks, Machine-guns, Hand-grenades - Words, Words, But They Hold The Horror Of The World.