For Us Lads Of Eighteen They Ought

On The Steps Is A Machine-gun Ready For Action. The Square Is Empty; Only The Streets That Lead Into It Are Jammed With People. It Would Be Madness To Go Farther - The Machine-gun Is Covering The Square.

To No Man Does The Earth Mean So Much As To The Soldier. When He Presses Himself Down Upon Her Long And Powerfully, When He Buries His Face And His Limbs Deep In Her From The Fear Of Death By Shell-fire, Then She Is His Only Friend, His Brother, His Mother; He Stifles His Terror And His Cries In Her Silence And Her Security; She Shelters Him And Releases Him For Ten Seconds To Live, To Run, Ten Seconds Of Life; Receives Him Again And Again And Often Forever.

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.

No Soldier Outlives A Thousand Chances.

Suddenly I Become Filled With A Consuming Impatience To Be Gone.