Part 19 (1/2)

”Shall I get you soulped in a horrible fashi+on I got hied, but did not dare, to say, ”Are you afraid ofthat?” I thought if one could say the word it ain over those bulging eyes, give him a sort of anchor, a confessional, even if it was only me But I didn't dare Gayner is one of those nation, one cannot taain I went and sat down

When next I looked up he eating He beckoned to me: ”Ask Sister to send for the doctor I can't stand this”

I went and asked her

She sucked her little finger thoughtfully

”Give him the thermometer,” she said He couldn't take it in his mouth, ”for if I shut my lips they'll never open” I put it under his arm and waited while his feet kicked and his hands twisted He was normal

Sister simlet-eyed

”Hysteria” he said to Sister in the bunk

”Is no one going to reassure Gayner?” I wondered And no one did

Isn't the fear of pain next brother to pain itself? Tetanus or the fear of tetanus--a choice between two nightmares Don't they admit that?

So, forbidden to speak to hi myself to sit down to it, for fear that the too placid resue him I stood up

Which helped s are over we scrub the dishes and basins in the annexe

In the annexe, except that there is nothing to sit on, there is leisure and an invitation to reflection

Beneath the s legions of white butterflies attack the cabbage-patch which divides us from the road; beyond the road there is a camp from which the dust flows all day

When the wind is from the north the dust is worse than ever and breaks like a surf over the cabbages, while the butterflies try to rise above it; but they never succeed, and di in the whirlpool

I shall never look at white butterflies again without hearing the sounds fro of riders, without thinking, perhaps, of the dairyman and of the other ”dairymen”

The butterflies do not care for noise When, standing beside the cabbage-patch, the bugler blows the dinner-bugle, they race in a cloud to the far corner and hover there until the last note is sounded

I think it is I who a when I consider the men as citizens, as persons of responsibility, and the Sister right when she says ”the boys”

Taken from their women, from their establishments, as monks or boys or even sheep are housed, they do not want, perhaps, to be reminded of an existence to which they cannot return; until a limb is off, or the war ends

To what a point they leave their private lives behind them! To what a point their lives are suspended

On the whole, I find that in hospital they do not think of the future or of the past, nor think oes it is a hold-up!