I could
only guess what it was all about. It all seemed to make no difference
to me when I sat down before pieces of blank paper to get down some
kind of picture, some kind of impression, of a long day in place where
I had been scared awhile because death was on the prowl in a noisy way
and I had seen it pounce on human bodies. I knew that tomorrow I was
going to another little peep-show of war, where I should hear the same
noises. That talk downstairs, that worry about some mystery at G. H.
Q. would make no difference to the life or death of men, nor get rid
of that coldness which came to me when men were being killed nearby.
Why all that argument?
It seemed that G. H. Q.--mysterious people in a mysterious place--were
drawing up rules for war correspondence and censorship; altering rules
made the day before, formulating new rules for to-morrow, establishing
precedents, writing minutes, initialing reports with, "Passed to you,"
or, "I agree," written on the margin. The censors who lived with us
and traveled with us and were our friends, and read what we wrote
before the ink was dry, had to examine our screeds with microscopic
eyes and with infinite remembrance of the thousand and one rules.
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