TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

sued by the Arras Battle which had now become a
huge and horrible idea. We might be boastful or
sagely reconstructive about our experience, in accord-
ance with our different characters. But our minds
were still out of breath and our inmost thoughts in
disorderly retreat from bellowing darkness and men
dying out in shell-holes under the desolation of return-
ing daylight. We were the survivors; few among us
would ever tell the truth to our friends and relations
in England. We were carrying something in our
heads which belonged to us alone, and to those we
had left behind us in the battle. There were dying men,
too, on board that Red Gross train, men dying for
their country in comparative comfort.

We reached our destination after midnight, and the
next day I was able to write in my diary: "I am still
feeling warlike and quite prepared to go back to the
Battalion in a few weeks; I am told that my wound
will be healed in a fortnight. The doctor here says I
am a lucky man as the bullet missed my jugular vein
and spine by a fraction of an inch, I know it would be
better for me not to go back to England, where I
should probably be landed for at least three months
and then have all the hell of returning again in July
or August." But in spite of my self-defensive scribble
I was in London on Friday evening, and by no means
sorry to be carried through the crowd of patriotic
spectators at Charing Cross Station. My stretcher
was popped into an ambulance which took me to a
big hospital at Denmark Hill. At Charing Cross a
woman handed me a bunch of flowers and a leaflet by
the Bishop of London who earnestly advised me to
lead a clean life and attend Holy Communion,

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