If You Go Long Enough

For A Lifetime I Had Bathed With Becoming Regularity, And Thought The World Would Come To An End Unless I Changed My Socks Every Day. But In Africa I Sometimes Went Without A Bath For Two Months, And I Went Two Weeks At A Time Without Even Changing My Socks. Oddly Enough, It Didn't Seem To Make Much Difference.

I Was Away From The Front Lines For A While This Spring, Living With Other Troops, And Considerable Fighting Took Place While I Was Gone. When I Got Ready To Return To My Old Friends At The Front I Wondered If I Would Sense Any Change In Them.

Someday When Peace Has Returned To This Odd World I Want To Come To London Again And Stand On A Certain Balcony On A Moonlit Night And Look Down Upon The Peaceful Silver Curve Of The Thames With Its Dark Bridges.

About Every Two Minutes A New Wave Of Planes Would Be Over. The Motors Seemed To Grind Rather Than Roar, And To Have An Angry Pulsation Like A Bee Buzzing In Blind Fury.

For Me War Has Become A Flat, Black Depression Without Highlights, A Revulsion Of The Mind And An Exhaustion Of The Spirit.