The Love of an Unknown Soldier Found in a Dug-Out | Page 4

the snow-covered window and the quiet tranquillity of your folded hands. You seemed unobtainable at that moment a vision that would fade. My brain talked within itself, whispering things that were so true that they would have sounded ridiculous if uttered. And yet there was so little time. When one has counted one's life in seconds, one loses respect for the decorous divisions of weeks and months. I thought that with luck we might even be married before my leave should end.
When once we were in public again our thoughts raced; we lost all fear of each other. There was one picture in the galleries that we stood before for a very long time: a fire-lit nursery table with a candle in the centre, children around it and a kind grey moon looking in at the window. It gave a touch of home and remembrance. The picture was by a Scotch artist who had visited me in my Oxford days; I told you how I had stolen a spray of chestnut once for the background to one of his pictures, breaking into the Warden's garden early one morning to do it.
We wandered out into the Gardens of the Luxembourg. How gay they were!
War seemed very far away. The paths were slippery; I took your arm at times to help you over places and laughed within myself at its reluctance. On the pond the Paris crowd was sliding old men, women, children, soldiers, all shouting and falling and enjoying themselves hugely.
We walked down the Boule Miche to Notre- Dame, where women were praying for their dead. We peeped in and saw the guttering candles and the wounded saints. Shuddering, we escaped to where the Seine lay blood- red in the winter sunset. What had we to do with death we who were so young? Presently you spoke of an appointment; all my contentment vanished. Could I see you home? Yes. So we jumped into a taxi. I made a desperate effort not to lose you what were you doing to-night? You were going to a theatre, but had a spare ticket and invited me to come. " She does care for me a little," I told myself that thought kept my heart singing after we had parted.
What a silent way you have of entering ! I think I noticed it for the first time that night. One never hears you coming; you are absent one looks again and you are there. Your eyes have a quiet laughter; they seem to know everything and to find amusement in a puzzled world. I can't think that there was ever a time when life perturbed you. If I had told you what was in my mind, I wonder, would it have altered your expression?
You trusted me so much from the very first; is that a good sign for a lover? Strange, that I should have conquered fear in the front-line, should have lived for days quite calmly with sudden death, and yet should tremble before a girl !
I have stopped to glance back through what I have written. Why do I go on writing? You will never read it. I might have said so much to you two hours ago; now it is too late. We have promised to drop each other a line now and then that was how we put it. Nothing more serious than that! The letter I shall send you will be strictly conventional and not too lengthy it will be the kind that I might write to any acquaintance of either sex. And yet yes, that is the thought that troubles me we may have met and parted for the very last time. Who knows how long one's luck may hold good up Front? The shell which has my name written on it may be already waiting at some Hun battery. I walk along a trench; there is a rush, a swift impact, blackness that is the end. It seems indecent that we should have said goodbye so cavalierly just a shake of the hand, a " Thank you ", for happiness and one of us walks out into Eternity with everything unuttered.
Since you will never read this, 1 will play a game; I will not send you what I write, but I will speak the truth to you on paper. If I live, perhaps some day, when war is ended, you will receive all your mail at once. If I "go West" before that can happen, you will never know and will not be hurt by my love. I can dream about you now; in the shell-holes of that unreal world it will seem as if you were really mine.
Perhaps I did not do right by keeping silent; perhaps my silence was false pride. I was talking to