I should go simply potty lying down and trying to get quiet and
peaceful.
I'm going to write down all the absolutely mad, freakish things that
have happened to-night, and hope that in doing so I shall perceive some
sane and feasible method of escape.
Diaries are useful sometimes; they keep your nerves from going
absolutely to pieces with the sheer unexpectedness of life.
Dad and mater were in a particularly horrid mood this evening. The C.O.
had complained about the Y.M.C.A. hut in the camp, or something, and
dinner was filthy, so the usual mutual recriminations took place. Rows
always make me feel so frightfully sick. I've never enjoyed a really
proper one, because I've always had to run away in the middle and be
ill, and then of course I never feel equal to coming back and finishing
it.
I don't think any of the shabby Tommies' wives who come over on the
paddle steamer on Sundays to visit their husbands at the camp live such
a petty, sordid life as we do in our diggings.
I hate dad when he gets red and shouts--I simply have to beat a retreat.
I can quite understand why the men are in such a fearful funk of him. I
have been terrified and appalled by him all my life, such is his effect
on my temperament that I could do or say anything when he loses control
and goes for me, tell any childish lies or make any excuses. My moral
sense positively ceases to exist.