al size,
and seemed sticky and clammy with earth and blood.

Everything was so silent.

There was a great lump of hardened blood where the rough field
dressing covered my right eye; my left cheek, nose, and lips were
swollen tremendously.

Whether it was night or day I did not know. But I knew I was blind. I
tried to collect my thoughts and to reason out my position.

Where was the German line, and where was the British? I knew that I
must be a considerable distance from the British line; but which
direction it was in, I could not tell.

If I were to crawl, which way should I go and where should I find
myself? Better to make the attempt and take my chance, than lie where
I was. On my hands and knees I tried to crawl up the side of the
shell-hole. But I had not reckoned on my weakness; the world was so
large and I was so small.

Before I could reach the top my strength gave out, and I slid to the
bottom. Again and again I tried, and with each attempt I kept slipping
back, each time, bringing with me a pile of loose earth.

At last I realised how hopeless it all was, with so little strength.
And unable even to reach to the top of the shell-hole, how could I
hope ever to reach the British line across the sea of shell-holes
which intervened? I seemed so far from everything; though little did I
dream at the time that German soldiers were within a few yards of me
in the trench from which I had driven them by such desperate efforts
two days before--two days! Surely it was two years!

Then my fate dawned upon me. Of course the end was quite logical. This
was the end; it could not be otherwise. Had I not made up my mind it
would come? Surely I did before I started? Was I not shot through the
head and left to die? Well, this was the proper place to die. But
what surprised me was that the thought of dying seemed so comforting.
I was so weary, and death seemed so peaceful.

I have heard people say that when a person is drowning, after the
first frantic struggles are over, a delightful sensation of
peacefulness comes over him, and he ceases to desire to help himself.
That was how I felt at that moment. This shell-hole was my grave.
Well, it seemed quite right and proper.

The idea of getting back to life after suffering so many deaths seemed
very unreasonable. My sensations were those of one who had awakened to
find himself buried alive. To be alive at all was cheating death,
which held me firmly in its grip. Better to