TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

down to battalion H.Q., with his faithful batman
Bond carrying his haversack and equipment^ and
then talking rather wildly to the Adjutant and Major
Evans (who was now in command), and finally get-
ting into the motor ambulance which took him to
the casualty clearing station.

And two days later he is still talking rather wildly,
but he is talking to himself now, and scribbling it
down with a pencil as he lies in a bed at No. 8 Red
Cross Hospital, Boulogne. It is evidence *of what I
have just written, so I will reproduce it.

"I don't know how to begin this. It is meant to be
a confession of my real feelings, or an attempt to find
out what they really are. Time drifts between me and
last week. Everything gets blurred. I know that I feel
amputated from the battalion. It seemed all wrong to
be leaving the Company behind and going away into
safety. I told the company sergeant-major I should
be back soon and then climbed out of the headquarters
shell-hole. Down the path between wheat and oats
and beans, and over the dangerous willow-bordered
road until I came to the red-roofed farm. Five o'clock
on a July morning. ... I passed the little cluster of
crosses, and blundered into the Aid Post to get my
head seen to. Prolonged farewells to the C.O. and
other H.Q,. officers—sleepy men getting situation re-
ports from the Front Line. * You'll see me back in three
weeks' I shouted, and turned the corner of the lane
with a last confident gesture. And so from one dress-
ing station to another, to spend a night at the big
C.C.S. where I tried to persuade an R.A.M.C.
Colonel to keep me there till my head was healed.
Even now I hang on to my obsession about not going
to Blighty. I write to people at home saying that I'm
staying in France till I can go up to the line again.

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