I wasn』t wouill late in 1916.
We』d just e out of the trenches and were marg over a bit of road a mile or so back which was supposed to be safe, but which the Germans must have got the range of some time earlier. Suddenly they started putting a few shells over—it was heavy H.E. stuff, and they were only firing about one a mihere was the usual zwee-e-e-e! and then BOOM! in a field somewhere over to the right. I think it was the third shell that got me. I knew as soon as I heard it ing that it had my name written on it. They say you always know. It didn』t say what an ordinary shell says. It said 『I』m after you, you b—, YOU, you b—, YOU!』—all this in the space of about three seds. And the last you was the explosion.
I felt as if an enormous hand made of air were sweeping me along. And presently I came down with a sort of burst, shattered feeling among a lot of old tin s, splinters of wood, rusty barbed wire, turds, empty cartridge cases, and other mu the ditch at the side of the road. When they』d hauled me out and ed some of the dirt off me they found that I wasn』t very badly hurt. It was only a lot of small shell-splihat had lodged in one side of my bottom and down the bay legs. But luckily I』d broken a rib in falling, which made it just bad enough to get me back to England. I spent that winter in a hospital camp on the downs near Eastbourne.
Do you remember those war-time hospital camps? The long rows of wooden huts like chi-houses stuck right on top of those beastly icy downs—the 『south coast』, people used to call it, which made me wonder what the north coast could be like—where the wind seems to blow at you from all dires at once. And the droves of blokes in their pale-blue flannel suits aies, wandering up and down looking for a place out of the wind and never finding one. Sometimes the kids from the slap-up boys』 schools ibourne used to be led round in crocodiles to hand out fags and peppermint creams to the 『wouommies』, as they called us. A pink-faced kid of about eight would walk up to a knot of wounded men sitting on the grass, split open a packet of Woodbines and solemnly hand one fag to each man, just like feeding the monkeys at the zoo. Anyone who was strong enough used to wander for miles over the downs in hopes of meeting girls. There were never enough girls to go round. In the valley below the camp there was a bit of a spinney, and long before dusk you』d see a couple glued against every tree, and sometimes, if it happeo be a thick tree, one on each side of it. My chief memory of that time is sitting against a gorse-bush in the freezing wind, with my fingers so cold I couldn』t bend them and the taste of a peppermint cream in my mouth. That』s a typical soldier』s memory. But I was getting away from a Tommy』s life, all the same. The C.O. had sent my name in for a ission a little before I was wounded. By this time they were desperate for officers and anyone who wasn』t actually illiterate could have a ission if he wanted one. I went straight from the hospital to an officers』 training camp near Colchester.
It』s very strahe things the war did to people. It was less than three years since I』d been a spry young shop-assistant, bending over the ter in my white apron with 『Yes, madam! Certainly, madam! AND the order, madam?』 with a grocer』s life ahead of me and about as muotion of being an Army officer as of getting a knighthood. And here I was already, swaggering about in a gorblimey hat and a yellow collar a