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Show ...:I it. people 'l'lll'. lt\lll{ l‘ut' t'lth‘t‘t‘t' lltutt l. FOUR? l'ttli‘l-iS'l' lliltt't't- \\'ill Itt‘ Iil‘illimlt (I0- wriptious ol‘ battles. ol' "but it let-K like to be under fire, ot lll:]l't'llt‘>. \‘it-ttlt‘it-<. retreats; \xouutls. death ~t‘\'et"\'tltintt. l sltztll llot‘n‘t‘t what my own little tiu.\ piwe til it was like ~~aud I don‘t want to l'ornt-t. I Want intensely to remember the truth tilt/wins. bet-muse the truth is bound up with Marie. and .\l;trie with the truth. \Vliy need I be shy now about her." Why should I hesitate, under the tear of my on u l:llt‘l' timidity. ol' Fil'\ in}; (‘\:tt'lll\' now whatl l'eel ‘{ God knows what I do let-ll I am eonl'used. hall-numb, half- tlead, I beliere. with moments ol' liei-y bitiuer realisation. I‘m neither sad. nor happy only breathlessly expeetant. The only adventure I have ever hml in my "to is notkno, it is notayet ended. And I know that Marie eonld not have lel't me like that. without a word, unless she were returning or were going: to send for me. Meanwhile today a beastly thing has happened, a thing that will make me niueh harder for me here. All the nn'trning there was work. llaudaeed 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. \Ve ought to be somewhere more open. The Forest is unhealthy, too. There's been fighting in and out of it almost since the war hogan-4t can't be healthy. In this hot weather the place smells. . . . 273 this morning. I thought they'd painted the walls black during the night. Then, at my taking the cover ofic some sugar, it was exaetly as though the walls hovered and then tell inward breakimr into blaek dust as they fell. They'll cluster over a drop ol' wine on the table just like an evil blaek flower with grey petals. \Vith one's body they can play trieks beyond belief. They laugh at one, hovering at a distance, waiting. They wateh one with their wicked little eyes . . . yes, .I shall have to be careful about flies. n I've had a headache all day, but then in the, alternoo and there was a thunderstorm hoveringr somewhere near I eim‘t there was no work to do. I feel tired, too, and yet , together sitting all sleep. Later in the afternoon we were ov Semyon very quiet, not talking. I was thinking about had he IIow death. her felt then. I wondered whether he glad, so was I taken it? Durward would tell me so little. in the strangall the same, that he wasn't here. And yet, to have asked him, to est way, I would like to have spoken the only him, it I had dared, a little about her. He was I don't grudge him man to whom she really gave herself. to l<t1(>\\~~:ititl yet thatvbut there's so much that I want That's an old phrase lid die rather than ask him. Die! than Semyonov ever now~death Would tell me much more he came in. It. could. Just when we were sitting there don't want to put it ntelo~ was the most hm-rible shock. I any one at home or away from this infernal strip of fighting 1 had ltt‘t‘ll dramati tally but that was exactly what it was. but I him, to ; speaking thinking of him, thinking even of couldn't he that had known at the time that he wasn't here, realise what tli is are? be here-then there he was in the dt)orway#'>‘l""m ""ll is Then there are the Flies. I write them with a capital let- ter because I've got to keep my head about the Flies. Does 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-100m the horrible thing Solid and grave and seornt'nl. Now I telt afraid. I didn‘t feel that the moment I realised him like thingr desires tor revenge» any ""140? 01' hatred or line. ptible tear. It seems that thatwsimplv a miserable eontem |