Then it was the
Dardanelles, and sunstroke and sand; sleeping in sand, eating
sand, sand in your boots, sand in your teeth; hiding in holes in
the sand like a dirty prairie dog. And then, 'Off to Servia!' And
the next act opens in the snow and the mud! Cold? God, how cold it
was! And most of us in sun helmets."
As though the cold still gnawed at his bones, he shivered.
"It isn't the danger," he protested. "It isn't _that_ I'm getting
away from. To hell with the danger! It's just the plain discomfort
of it! It's the never being your own master, never being clean,
never being warm." Again he shivered and rubbed one hand against
the other. "There were no bridges over the streams," he went on,
"and we had to break the ice and wade in, and then sleep in the
open with the khaki frozen to us. There was no firewood; not
enough to warm a pot of tea. There were no wounded; all our
casualties were frost bite and pneumonia. When we take them out of
the blankets their toes fall off. We've been in camp for a month
now near Doiran, and it's worse there than on the march. It's a
frozen swamp. You can't sleep for the cold; can't eat; the only
ration we get is bully beef, and our insides are frozen so damn
tight we can't digest it. The cold gets into your blood, gets into
your brains. It won't let you think; or else, you think crazy
things.
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