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And in
the market-place of a sleepy old town the windows were mostly broken
and some shops had gone into dust and ashes. That was new since we
last passed this way.
London was only seven hours away, but the hours on leave there seemed
a year ago already. The men who had come back, after sleeping in
civilization with a blessed sense of safety, had a few minutes of
queer surprise that, after all, this business of war was something
more real than a fantastic nightmare, and then put on their moral
cloaks against the chill and grim reality, for another long spell of
it. Very quickly the familiarity of it all came back to them and
became the normal instead of the abnormal. They were back again to the
settled state of war, as boys go back to public schools after the
wrench from home, and find that the holiday is only the incident and
school the more enduring experience.
There were no new impressions, only the repetition of old impressions.
So I found when I heard the guns again and watched the shells bursting
about Ypres and over Kemmel Ridge and Messines church tower.


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