It came to him that while he remained a soldier, this
was to be his continual experience. Upon his return from every tour
new gaps would stare at him. Up in the lines they did not so terribly
obtrude themselves, but back here in rest billets they thrust themselves
upon him like hideous mutilations upon a well loved face. He could
hardly force himself to remove his muddy, filthy clothes. He would
gladly have laid himself down upon his cot just as he was, and given
himself up to the luxury of his grief and loneliness, until sleep should
come, but his life as a soldier had taught him something. These months
of discipline, and especially these last months of companionship with
his battalion through the terrible experiences of war, had wrought into
the very fibre of his life a sense of unity with and responsibility for
his comrades. His every emotion of loss, of grief, of heart-sickness
carried with it the immediate suggestion and remembrance that his
comrades too were passing through a like experience, and this was his
salvation.
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