The Coffin, It Shall Protect Me, Though

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.

Yes, That's The Way They Think, These Hundred Thousand Kantoreks! Iron Youth! Youth! We Are None Of Us More Than Twenty Years Old. But Young? That Is Long Ago. We Are Old Folk.

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

I Did Not Want To Think So Much About Her. I Wanted To Take Her As An Unexpected, Delightful Gift, That Had Come And Would Go Again — Nothing More. I Meant Not To Give Room To The Thought That It Could Ever Be More. I Knew Too Well That All Love Has The Desire For Eternity And That Therein Lies Its Eternal Torment. Nothing Lasts. Nothing.

We March Up, Moody Or Good-tempered Soldiers - We Reach The Zone Where The Front Begins And Become On The Instant Human Animals.