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

wondered then, as I have wondered
so many times, whether you had guessed. I can see you now the clear
profile of your face against 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