Last day of my life.
Diary, 24th of September, 1916.
Near Combres.
I had spent the night in an old ruined cellar
with its walls dripping green moisture.
And so now it was good to feel the warmth of the sun
striking through the folds of my damp tunic.
And the morning was perfect.
There was nothing to be heard,
save the occasional murmur of soldiers' voices
and the crunch of boots on the loose soil.
And in the gentle lulling warmth, the war seemed very remote,
for here was peace.
One time, I remember I slowly became aware of the sound of men digging
on the other side of the bank near where I stood.
I don't know what they were digging for exactly,
but I do remember that they sounded very cheerful about it.
Especially when somebody nearby started a phonograph going.
It was very comforting to hear those cheerful noises
because, well, it was such a warm and peaceful morning,
and it all helped me to forget about the war.
And perhaps, not only me for all around me
in this desolate back area there were soldiers relaxing.
Soldiers quiet and easy in the sun, a whole army at rest,
like an unwound clock spring,
men released from a hell in a merciful peace that is suddenly shattered.
Shattered by the soft, but deadly voices of guns,
an insistent clamouring from a heavy barrage at the front two miles away.
Start to feel the certain pangs of fear
and the gentle breath of the morning turns sour.
But does any of this affect the other members of my section?
Seems not.
Pretzlav at the end is now concluding some coarse joke.
Other men appear to be quite unconcerned and relaxed.
I can't tell whether those men at the end are as scared as I am.
I don't know.
They maybe able to cover up well,
for a couple of French soldiers from the front are passing them
and the only reaction seems to be that Pretzlav has some rude remark for them.
But to me, the sight of those dusty soldiers clumping away
brings the physical feel of war close the first time.
And then suddenly I hear the rattle of rifle bolts
and the clink of steel helmets and then the crunch of marching feet,
as men all around me march off to the front...
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
Each seismic crunch of the boot draws the war closer and closer.
Oh God, soon it will be my turn and my feet, too.
Crunch! Crunch! Dragging me forward towards those guns.
Those bloody blasted guns!
I suppose I must be making a melodrama out of all this.
There's something so unnatural,
so horrible about the sight of those soldiers,
plodding like soulless automatons through a desolate land.
It's all rather unnerved me.
Anyway, I must try to pull myself together like those other men over there
who seem to be quietly relaxing in the sun.
Yes, Pretzlav there, who seems to spend almost every waking minute
relishing one of the highly immoral and vulgar leaves he spent
and of course solid, dour Bill Richards,
who seems to spend most of his time listening to Pretzlav.
Then of course, there's dear old Tom Mason
who has been in the war since early 1915.
He can be a little old fashioned at times.
Particularly where a young Ginger Morris is concerned,
who has without doubt the most active bowel system in the British Army.
He's always emerging from behind some bush or other.
And as he usually has some cheeky answer ready.
Poor old Tom ends up by being furious.
But Ted Crompton, I've never really liked.
Probably because I feel he rather enjoys his war.
As for young Lieutenant Ferris,
I always think how awful it must be for him, for an offensive...
He's always got to appear calm and in complete control of his nerves,
no matter what he really feels.
It's probably a lot easier for the experienced Sergeant Harman.
He's been in the front a good many times before.
Oh God, those guns again, they seem to be nearer now.
Louder and more insistent.
They seem to destroy every vestige of the peace and beauty of this morning.
Air is foul, the trees seem to become twisted and warped.
Branches jab at me, sharp, pointed and hard like steel, like a battle.
Oh God, a battle. I'm scared.
I'm so bloody scared.
I know what's going to happen.
I can see it all in my mind.
I can see it.
I can see the details of a battle in my mind.
I can... I can hear the noise. I can see the blurred confusion.
Men running, men left to die.
I... Oh God! It's too awful.
Too bloody... Oh, I'm so scared.
Well, this... This is what I'm going to go through.
Watch them cheering.
They've gained an area of about 200 square yards of mud,
just heaving, stinking mud.
And in a short while, the game old Bosch will win it back again.
In the meanwhile, let them cheer, it's a wonderful achievement.
And that... That is howl shall probably die.
Left like some torn, screwed up rag on the battlefield.
When you know this is going to happen to you,
your body suddenly becomes something terribly precious to you.
Your flesh, soft and warm, is yours.
Your personal belonging,
not to be treated like some discarded piece of offal.
You find yourself thinking about this,
realizing what a wonderful thing your body is
and what an awful and wrong thing it is to maltreat it.
But all that is to come.
At the moment it's just the watching and the waiting.
Watching the lieutenant and waiting for someone,
probably a brigade runner to bring him our movement orders.
Orders that will take us to the front, to those guns.
Oh, come on! Why the hell doesn't something happen?
Time is just grinding by and nothing is happening.
Or perhaps... Perhaps the runner won't appear.
Perhaps... Hmm.
Oh God!
I should have known.
Should have known that there'd be no escape.
The others must know it, too.
I wonder what they're thinking about.
What's going on behind that cold front of Crompton's.
Crompton, who has vowed to run at least three Germans through with his bayonet
before the battle is over.
Is he really as hard and as cold as he would have us believe'?
Or is all this toughness merely a front to cover his real feelings?
Only he knows.
Now, don't envy poor old Tom,
he's been to the front so many times before,
he really knows what he's in for.
Must be awful for him.
Must be awful for all of them.
Just managing to control their feelings on the outside,
they wait and watch in silence, impassive, expressionless.
But what's on the inside?
Fear'?
Resentment?
Bewilderment?
Or just loneliness?
If that officer had only the power
to write down what each of his men really felt.
And could then make the people who start these wars read about it.
Then, maybe they'd... Maybe...
Oh, well.
Anyway I see now that we're about to start our little war.
So, let's pull up our equipment, pull it on
and get ready to play at being tin soldiers
and go and fight for a few yards of earth.
So, now I'm ready with my rifle and bayonet
and steel helmet and ammunition.
I suppose I must be everything
that those recruiting posters say I should be.
They don't tell you you can get so scared, so numb
that even the rough canvas webbing, you can't feel it.
You just don't know it's there.
The whole body is a vacuum without feeling.
Except for the hands, their cold, clammy palm.
To be a proper soldier you've got to wipe your hand
by making little furtive moves so that nobody can see.
There's... There's an ache in your throat.
And your head hurts and your...
And your mind flicks from thing to thing.
You can't think properly.
Your hands remotely do odd little things without you knowing.
Oh God, my head hurts.
Why can't someone explain to me just why I've got to die'?
Soon... Soon there'll be nothing.
Just a void. Nothing.
And Tom...
Tom, please help me.
Give me some of your strength,
so that I won't be scared, as you're not scared.
Tom, please help me.
And he didn't say a thing. Didn't try to help me.
I just don't know why, or was he scared too'?
I shall never know. I shall never know.
So then it was time for us to leave.
Well, I suppose in years to come people will say about us...
"They went with songs to the battle."
"They were young, straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow."
God, if only they knew.
As we marched along the top of the ridge,
I saw below us a German prisoner.
He was the first German soldier I'd ever seen.
As I looked at him, I saw the complete ridiculousness of the whole thing.
He was eating a bowl of soup or something
and he looked so ordinary, so harmless.
He might have been Pretzlav or Morris sitting there,
just wearing a different uniform.
This man was meant to be our enemy,
one of the soldiers of the hated imperial German empire.
One of the men we've been trained to kill.
And he looked so harmless.
But the most terrible thing about war
is not just the fact that we have to kill men so much like ourselves,
but that we have to hate them and keep on hating them.
And now, meanwhile, all that is left to us, to our section
is to go forward and fight and kill men like him, like ourselves.
Seems so bloody pointless, we go forward to those guns
and God only knows what'll happen to us.
God only knows.
We're told what a tremendous thing it is to die for one's country.
Well, tell it to those two.