Nothing Is The Mirror In Which You

This Book Is To Be Neither An Accusation Nor A Confession, And Least Of All An Adventure, For Death Is Not An Adventure To Those Who Stand Face To Face With It. It Will Try Simply To Tell Of A Generation Of Men Who, Even Though They May Have Escaped Shells, Were Destroyed By The War.

Suddenly I Become Filled With A Consuming Impatience To Be Gone.

The Crowd, Still Shouting, Gives Way Before Us. We Plough Our Way Through. Women Hold Their Aprons Over Their Faces And Go Stumbling Away. A Roar Of Fury Goes Up. A Wounded Man Is Being Carried Off.

Through The Years Our Business Has Been Killing;-it Was Our First Calling In Life. Our Knowledge Of Lif Eis Limited To Death.

Monotonously The Lorries Sway, Monotonously Come The Calls, Monotonously Falls The Rain. It Falls On Our Heads And On The Heads Of The Dead Up The Line, On The Body Of The Little Recruit With The Wound That Is So Much Too Big For His Hip; It Falls On Kemmerich's Grave; It Falls In Our Hearts.