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World War One / Re: The suddenness and absence of glory.
« on: Saturday 01 October 16 16:28 BST (UK) »
Hi Carol,
The whole paragraph is haunting:
Paul
The whole paragraph is haunting:
Quote
Major Sewell was sitting on the ground and little groups of diggers converged on him and lay waiting for the signal to withdraw. By now the enemy must have seen movements for the bullets came whining over and dropping around us quite frequently. How strange and interesting it seemed – to me the plopping of spent bullets into the ground was hardly distinguishable from the ‘plops’ of a tennis ball on dry turf – there was no malevolence in the sounds. True, Sapper W. Swainston had been killed by a bullet a little before but that seemed to be an isolated happening, something remote. When most of the digging party had assembled, the order to file away was given but we had not moved more than a dozen paces when Major Sewell, a tall imposing figure at the head of the party dropped without sound except the thud of a bullet and the crash of a heavy body on the soft earth.
The march back was resumed while Sgt. Blow, myself and two others made our way to a regimental-aid-post established under the shell of a farmhouse, carrying the heavily loaded stretcher across the rough broken ground. The journey seemed endless and before we reached the post, slipping, stumbling and swaying with fatigue we had fallen several times and our unconscious burden had once been tipped out of the stretcher when we fell in a jumbled heap. Arrived at the aid post, passing through the doorway covered by groundsheets to keep in the light, we came upon a normal everyday trench war scene, to our inexperienced eyes an unreal, macabre, sight. By the light of a hurricane lamp and fluttering candles, a medical officer and two orderlies were examining the wounded who were lying on stretchers or were standing with heads or arms or legs bandaged awaiting transfer to advanced dressing station. The busy M.O., diverted from his bandaging, took what seemed to be a cursory look at our burden, said, “Take him outside, he’s dead” and returned to his interrupted task. We stumble up the cellar steps, added the body to a long row of others who had finished their soldiering, and made our silent way back to our billets feeling numbed and shocked at the suddenness and absence of glory in this incident which had taken from us the dominant personality who so far had directed and led the company.
Paul
