I    ill late in 1916.

        e’d just e out of trenc of road a mile or so back    ime earlier. Suddenly tarted putting a fe one a mio t. I t    got me. I k ten on it. t didn’t say er you, you b—, YOU, you b—, YOU!’—all t t you he explosion.

        I felt as if an enormous ly I came do of burst, stered feeling among a lot of old tin s, splinters of y barbed urds, empty cartridge cases, and otc t and ed some of t off me t I    very badly . It    of small sers t tom and do luckily I’d broken a rib in falling,    bad enougo get me back to England. I spent t er in a al camp on tbourne.

        Do you remember time al camps? ts like cuck rigop of tly icy do’, people used to call it,    could be like— you from all dires at once. And ts aies,    of times tbourne used to be led round in crocodiles to    fags and peppermint creams to tommies’, as t eigo a knot of ting on t open a packet of oodbines and solemnly o eac like feeding t trong enougo ing girls. to go round. In t of a spinney, and long before dusk you’d see a couple glued against every tree, and sometimes, if it o be a tree, one on eac. My c time is sitting against a gorse-bus bend taste of a peppermint cream in my mout’s a typical soldier’s memory. But I ting aommy’s life, all t my name in for a ission a little before I ime te for officers and anyone ually illiterate could ed one. I    straigal to an officers’ training camp near Colcer.

        It’s very strao people. It ant, bending over ter in my ainly, madam! AND t order, madam?’    as mu of being an Army officer as of getting a knig in a gorblimey    and a yelloempents and some emporary. And—t—not feeling it in any range. Ne in those days.

        It    time no notion    to resist. If people didn’t , no    t pack up and go s ly for a lark and partly because of England my England and Britons never never and all t stuff. But    last? Most of tten all about it long before t as far as Frarenc patriotic, did care a damn about gallant little Belgium and tables (it ables’, as t made it reets of Brussels. On t didn’t occur to to try and escape. t    could do    liked    lifted you up and dumped you do     icularly stra    didn’t    me any longer. I    from t day for back to Lo o Mot sounds incredible no it seemed natural enoug time. Partly, I admit, it    of Elsie, ing to after t s I didn’t    to meet    a bit of leave I’d s w would have been proud of a son in uniform.

        Fat time. I don’t exaggerate s me more no did t time it    a bit of bad ne    i, in t of empty-ico t to get enoug to read tter, and I remember Motear-stains on tter, and tgaged for most of its value, but ttle money in to buy up tod even pay some tiny amount for t over time being to lodge ty    of ton. It ime being’. temporary feeling about everytter of fact er. it front of you a kind of fifteen-act tragedy, t act being a pauper’s funeral. But no being one’s oer overs in terms of td tions about t.

        So see me in tal at Eastbour    ime I ravelled, and everyto me, but tion t s talked in t Aunt Mart aying ion ombstone and alk, talk I’d listeo for years, a some alking. It didn’t    me any longer. I’d king kind of creature, a bit like a s like a broody er all stle old     time I sa training sc Colcer, and put in for a    leave immediately. But it oo late. Sime I got to Doxley.    so be iion ernal grooucor tried to celli’, o call it, seeing t it had killed her.

        ell, o Fat    glimpse of Lo , even in t, some    names over tson, to to catcs alive, . One of t Grimmett’s    bot up tage near alton on a tiny annuity. Old Grimmett, on t of turned patriotid ried stious objectors. toy, forlorn kind of look    tically no . Every aking ation fly still existed, but te t pulled it    o stand up if it    been for ts. For t I oo Elsie. I sa it    see t’s uniform,    (a t on kinctly remember t I ill t tood at to t it means for your moto be lying    of eartop of c even t altoget of my mind.

        Don’t t feel for Mot i care a damn about, didn’t even grasp to be er t Mart    back to Doxley on took to tation, to get train to London and to Colcer. e drove past taken it si , and t tc tless’, ures, and tried on my first     to me as t    an act if I ever set foot in it again. Faterrier, Spot, t came after Nailer, Jackie ts, t—all gone, not but dust. And I didn’t care a damn. I    all time my mind    proud of being seen riding in a cab, a t yet got used to, and I    of my neies, so different from tty stuff tommies o    Colcer and ty quid Mot and t. Also I    I    o run into Elsie.

        traordinary to people. And raordinary t killed people    sometimes didn’t kill t    flood ruso deat er ra pay for ttalions making roads across t t didn’t lead any ferman cruisers    ypists ing years after tion ia. People ten by ties for years on end. t o myself, or very likely I    be s is rateresting.

        A little ted training camp    I krade (I didn’t let on t I’d actually been beer) old me to send my name in. t    t, and I    about to leave for anotraining-scrade, to act as some kind of secretary to Sir Josep, but at any rate t t ter I ing in Sir Josep, rately impressed me.    professional soldier, type, and migo t, te life    System. opped ing as I came in and looked me over.

        ‘You a gentleman?’

        ‘No, sir.’

        ‘Good. t some work done.’

        In about tes    of me t I arial experience, didn’t knoypeer, and    ty-eig I’d do, too malemen in t beyond ten. I liked o    at t terious po seemed to be running t again. Somet Coast Defence Force alked about, and tablisions and otores at various points along t. Sir Josepo be responsible for t er of England. ter I joined    me doo cores at a place called t. Or rato find out ed. Nobody seemed certain about t got t tores sisted of eleven tins of bully beef o take cores at till furtice. I ores at too late.    day came tter inf me t I ’s really tory. I remained O.C. t of the war.

        God kno . It’s no use asking me    Coast Defence Force    o do. Even at t time nobody preteo kno did. It    a sc ed to exist all along t ed for about t of bubble, and tten, and I’d been fotten . My eleven tins of bully beef    beerious mission. t bee Lidgebird.    Lidgebird o be doing t I remained guarding tins of bully beef from o t, but it’s trut time even t didn’t seem particularly strange. By 1918 one    out of t of expeg to happen in a reasonable manner.

        Once a mont me an enormous official form calling upoo state tion of pick-axes, entrencools, coils of barbed s, erproof groundss, first-aid outfits, ss of cated iron, and tins of plum and apple jam under my care. I just entered ‘nil’ against everyt tly filing t more forms, and filing t erious ten my existence. I didn’t jog ter t didn’t lead any s riotism t I ed to get out of it.

        It    of t tle s of sand. Nine mont rained, and tlantic. t Private Lidgebird, myself, tisins of bully beef. Lidgebird    muc of    t t    gardener before    eresting to see ing to type. Even before I got to tarted planting spuds, in tumn cill    about ivation, at tarted keeping    to quite a number by to t crossed o    t Coast Defence Force ually existed. It    surprise me to    ill, raising pigs and potatoes on t o be. I o him.

        Meanime job—reading.

        t a feions and nearly all of tripe t people ories and so fort at some time or ot books are    are not. I myself, at time, didn’t knoarily read ective stories and on a ty sex book. God k up to be a    if you’d asked me t Me, or (in memory of t ention of reading. But to do, reaming d me in temporary s t. Naturally I started to read to end,    t as muctempt to discriminate as a pig s hrough a pail of garbage.

        But in among t    from t it    run a I suddenly discovered Marcel Proust or     in t    no so    you strike a book    tal level you’ve reac t, so muc it seems to ten especially for you. One of tory of Mr Polly, in a     it o be broug up, try too e across a book like t? Anoton Mazie’s Sireet. It    in Loory, parts of    started you t story of D. . I don’t remember t. It ory about a German script ification and ts caug puzzled me a lot. I couldn’t make out    , a left me    I’d like to read some ot.

        ell, for several montite for books t    like p. It    real go-in at reading t I’d    to set about getting    to buy t’s iing, I t s Mudie’s and times Book Club er I learned of tence of lending libraries and took out a subscription at Mudie’s and anot a library in Bristol. And    year or so! ells, rad, Kipling, Galst Ridge, Oliver Onions, pton Mazie, on Merriman, Maurice Baring, Stept, Aton Porter.    list are knoo you, I ook seriously in tten no at t’s got in among a s revelled in ter a bit, of course, I greinguisripe and not-tripe. I got    of , and I got a lot of kick out of Oscar ilde’s Dorian Gray and Stevenson’s Neers and liked it, and I tried several of    stuck about    Ibsen,    in Nor’s always raining.

        It    time it struck me as queer. I     left, I could already distinguist and Elinlyn, a rocer. If I tot up t, I suppose I must admit t t any rate t year of reading novels ion, in t I’ve ever    did certain to my mind. It gave me an attitude, a kind of questioning attitude, and t really u meaninglessness of the life I was leading.

        It really    time in 1918. ting beside tove in an Army , reading novels, and a feing t, o t small coke into a furnace. I aken ttle bolt- did. At times I got into a panid made sure t me and dig me out, but it y grey paper, came in once a mont t t    on. t as muc as a lunatic’s dream. t of all to leave me hing.

        I    tten ers. By time literally millions of people uck up backers of one kind and anotting as t people ten tries ypists all draly    all to pile up mounds of paper. Nobody believed trocity stories and t little Belgium stuff any lo ted taff as mental defectives. A sort of    even got as far as t ion to say t turned people into    it did turn to nis for time being. People o t pudding urned into Bols by t s    been for t kno somet from    o kill you it o start you ter t unspeakable idiotic mess you couldn’t go arding society as someternal and uionable, like a pyramid. You kne    a balls-up.
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