The Love of an Unknown Soldier Found in a Dug-Out | Page 7

not want
to make too many tracks the snow shows them up too plainly.
I found my major in a hole sunk beneath the ground. " Glad you've
come," he said. 'Sorry to rush you into harness this way, but it can't be
helped. It's our turn to relieve at liaison. I'll give you what information I
have and you must be off in quarter of an hour."

I had a hurried breakfast, borrowed some glasses, for mine were with
the rest of my kit at the waggon-lines, collected my telephonists and
went forward. Here I have been for the best part of three days. There
isn't much time to think or regret in the army which is merciful. I am
taking pot-luck with the infantry. I have no blankets, no pillow, no
nothing. I had to leave everything behind in the hurry. At night I lie
down on chicken -wire, spread across supports, and fold my trench-coat
beneath my head. It really doesn't matter much not having blankets, for
I've had to be up and about all night. The only time that it's safe to sleep
is between six and eleven in the morning. I must leave off something is
happening.
It turned out to be a false alarm. Some one got nervous in the front-line
and let off an S.O.S. rocket. We clapped down a barrage on the Hun
trenches; if he had intended anything, he changed his mind. All is quiet
now, except far to our left. where one can hear occasional machine-gun
fire like the clicking of a desultory typewriter. From the enemy's side of
No Man's Land flares keep shooting up; they look like taxis speeding
through the blackness. You can weave all kinds of fancies out of our
nights if you're in love and have an imagination. Those white flares,
appearing, racing, vanishing, seem to me a phantom-city and make me
think of Paris. Sudden memories of you come backgestures, moods,
sayings which 1 scarcely noticed at the time. Do you remember that
night when we went to the Hotel Pavilion together, where the American
soldiers meet and you did canteen work? Your job that night was to sell
cigarettes. I sat and watched you. The boys came in intending to buy
something; they hardly noticed you at first. Then they saw you, stared
and tried to spin out an awkward conversation. Decency forbade them
to stay too long; but, when they had concluded their purchase, they'd
return to buy something else. They really returned to get another sight
of you. You cushioned your face in your hands while you talked with
them; you pretended to be a shopwoman, but quite consciously you
fascinated. You fascinated me as well. There was a little hat you wore
that night; it was of velvet, and made a slanting line across your
forehead, accentuating the fineness of your brows. It was the same hat
that you wore when we met so briefly in America.

What are you? You are drifting away from me, becoming unreal
already. I can't associate you with this place of imminent death you are
so much alive. Did you care for me at all, even for a moment? Did you
ever picture the life to which I was going? Was I only an incident some
one transiently amusing, and perhaps a little pleasant? We never spoke
of what lay before or behind we merely enjoyed our handful of hours.
But for me there was always poignancy in our happiness. The thought
was constantly with me of our parting. Something within me kept
warning, " It is the end the end the end." If I had only met you earlier,
in the days before war started, I could have made love to you
honourably. But not now. I turn my head and look out into the passage
across my shoulder; I see the boots, the form beneath the blanket, the
stretcher. He was a man once; in a second of time what lies there was
all that was left. Perhaps he, too, loved a girl. Perhaps he told her. How
much better if he had kept silent. And yet " I wish I had married my
man," your friend said. It's a problem. Self-interest dictates that I
should tell you. That choice might be more righteous than silence; it
depends on you. But because the choice would be selfish I distrust it.
Here is another letter which will never reach you. The letter you will
get will be quite different. I shall address you by your surname, tell you
briefly that I'm back in the line, and ask how things are going with you.
I wonder, will you write? When I asked you to do so, was that
embarrassed nod of your head a polite evasion