A sick headache crept upon me,
seized me, held me. I might look at the soldiers, sleeping now like
dead men in the trench, I might look at the Red Cross flag lazily
flapping in the breeze across the road, I might look at the corpse
with the soiled marble feet under the tree, I might look at Trenchard
and Marie Ivanovna silent and unhappy on the stretchers, on Anna
Petrovna comfortably slumbering with an open mouth, I might listen to
the distant batteries, to the sudden quick impatient chatter of the
machine guns, to the rattling give-and-take of the musketry somewhere
far away where the river was, I might watch the cool green hollows of
the forest glades, the dark sleepy shadows, the bright patches of
burning sky between the branches, I might say to myself that all these
things together made the impression of my first battle ... and then
would know, in my heart, that there was no impression at all, no
thrill, no drama, no personality--only a sick throb in my head and a
cold hand upon my chest and a desire to fling myself into any horror,
any danger, if I could but escape this indigestible monotony.
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