Then they ignored me, and I was glad, and made a little study
in the psychology of men awaiting a close call of death. I was
perfectly conscious myself that in a moment or two some of us, perhaps
all of us, might be in a pulp of mangled flesh beneath the ruins of a
red-brick villa--the shells were crashing among the outhouses and in
the courtyard, and the enemy was making good shooting--and the idea
did not please me at all. At the back of my brain was Fear, and there
was a cold sweat in the palms of my hands; but I was master of myself,
and I remember having a sense of satisfaction because I had answered
the brigade major in a level voice, with a touch of his own arrogance.
I saw that these officers were afraid; that they, too, had Fear at the
back of the brain, and that their conversation and laughter were the
camouflage of the soul. The face of the young A. D. C. was flushed and
he laughed too much at his own jokes, and his laughter was just a tone
too shrill. An officer came into the hall, carrying two Mills bombs--
new toys in those days--and the others fell back from him, and one
said:
"For Christ's sake don't bring them here--in the middle of a
bombardment!"
"Where's the general?" asked the newcomer.
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