about it. When I come out of it into
the world again I shall be overwhelmed with other people's impressions
of it, people far cleverer than I. There will be brilliant
descriptions of battles, of what it feels like to be under fire, of
marches, victories, retreats, wounds, death--everything. I shall
forget what my own little tiny piece of it was like--and I don't want
to forget. I want intensely to remember the truth _always_, because
the truth is bound up with Marie, and Marie with the truth. Why need I
be shy now about her? Why should I hesitate, under the fear of my own
later timidity, of saying exactly now what I feel? God knows what I
_do_ feel! I am confused, half-numb, half-dead, I believe, with
moments of fiery biting realisation. I'm neither sad, nor happy--only
breathlessly expectant. The only adventure I have ever had in my life
is not--no, it is not--yet ended. And I know that Marie could not have
left me like that, without a word, unless she were returning or were
going to send for me.

Meanwhile to-day a beastly thing has happened, a thing that will make
life much harder for me here. All the morning there was work. Bandaged
twenty--had fifty in altogether--sent thirty-four on, kept the rest.
Two died during the morning. This isn't really a good place to be,
it's so hemmed in with trees. We ought to be somewhere more open. The
Forest is unhealthy, too. There's been fighting in and out of it
almost since the war began--it _can't_ be healthy. In this hot weather
the place _smells_.... Then there are the Flies. I write them with a
capital letter because I've got to keep my head about the Flies. Does
any one at home or away from this infernal strip of fighting realise
what flies are? Of course one's read of the tropical sorts, all red
and stinging, or white and bloated--what you like, evil and horrid,
but these here are just the ordinary household kind. Quite ordinary,
but sheets, walls of them. I came into the little larder place near
our sitting-room this morning. I thought they'd painted the walls
black during the night. Then, at my taking the cover off some sugar,
it was exactly as though the walls hovered and then fell inward
breaking into black dust as they fell. They'll cluster over a drop of
wine on the table just like an evil black flower with grey petals.
With one's body they can play tricks beyond belief. They _laugh_ at
one, hovering at a distance, waiting. They watch one with their wicked
little e