Mr. Standfast John Buchan (e book reading free txt) š
- Author: John Buchan
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The men, as I have said, were wonderfully steady and patient under the fiercest trial that soldiers can endure. I had all kinds in the divisionā āold army, new army, Territorialsā āand you couldnāt pick and choose between them. They fought like Trojans, and, dirty, weary, and hungry, found still some salt of humour in their sufferings. It was a proof of the rock-bottom sanity of human nature. But we had one man with us who was hardly sane.ā āā ā¦
In the hustle of those days I now and then caught sight of Ivery. I had to be everywhere at all hours, and often visited that remnant of Scots Fusiliers into which the subtlest brain in Europe had been drafted. He and his keepers were never on outpost duty or in any counterattack. They were part of the mass whose only business was to retire discreetly. This was childās play to Hamilton, who had been out since Mons; and Amos, after taking a day to get used to it, wrapped himself in his grim philosophy and rather enjoyed it. You couldnāt surprise Amos any more than a Turk. But the man with them, whom they never leftā āthat was another matter.
āFor the first wee bit,ā Hamilton reported, āwe thocht he was gaun daft. Every shell that came near he jumped like a young horse. And the gas! We had to tie on his mask for him, for his hands were fushionless. There was whiles when he wadna be hindered from standinā up and talkinā to hisself, though the bullets was spittinā. He was what ye call demoralizedā āā ā¦ Syne he got as though he didna hear or see onything. He did what we tellāt him, and when we let him be he sat down and grat. Heās aye greetināā āā ā¦ Queer thing, sirr, but the Gairmans canna hit him. Iām aye shakinā bullets out oā my claes, and Iāve got a hole in my shoulder, and Andra took a bash on his tin that wad hae felled onybody that hadna a heid like a stot. But, sirr, the prisoner taks no scaith. Our boys are feared of him. There was an Irishman says to me that he had the evil eye, and ye can see for yerself that heās no canny.ā
I saw that his skin had become like parchment and that his eyes were glassy. I donāt think he recognized me.
āDoes he take his meals?ā I asked.
āHe doesna eat muckle. But he has an unco thirst. Ye canna keep him off the menās water-bottles.ā
He was learning very fast the meaning of that war he had so confidently played with. I believe I am a merciful man, but as I looked at him I felt no vestige of pity. He was dreeing the weird he had prepared for others. I thought of Scudder, of the thousand friends I had lost, of the great seas of blood and the mountains of sorrow this man and his like had made for the world. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the long ridges above Combles and Longueval which the salt of the earth had fallen to win, and which were again under the hoof of the Boche. I thought of the distracted city behind us and what it meant to me, and the weak, the pitifully weak screen which was all its defence. I thought of the foul deeds which had made the German name to stink by land and sea, foulness of which he was the arch-begetter. And then I was amazed at our forbearance. He would go mad, and madness for him was more decent than sanity.
I had another man who wasnāt what you might call normal, and that was Wake. He was the opposite of shell-shocked, if you understand me. He had never been properly under fire before, but he didnāt give a straw for it. I had known the same thing with other men, and they generally ended by crumpling up, for it isnāt natural that five or six feet of human flesh shouldnāt be afraid of what can torture and destroy it. The natural thing is to be always a little scared, like me, but by an effort of the will and attention to work to contrive to forget it. But Wake apparently never gave it a thought. He wasnāt foolhardy, only indifferent. He used to go about with a smile on his face, a smile of contentment. Even the horrorsā āand we had plenty of themā ādidnāt affect him. His eyes, which used to be hot, had now a curious open innocence like Peterās. I would have been happier if he had been a little rattled.
One night, after we had had a bad day of anxiety,
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