"I tried to follow the course of every shell. My head was continually
twisting. I jumped at every explosion. I could not control the muscles
of my back and shoulders. But I stepped out of the line and walked a
little way into the field, toward the shells. I wanted to see if I
could do it. I got close enough so that I could hear a piece of shell
whiz past my ear. Then I waited for another piece. It was a hard job,
but I waited, leaning on my rifle and looking at the ground a little
way in front of me, where the last shell had exploded. If I had moved
my eyes from that spot I could not have stayed. Not until the third one
came did I hear another piece of shell. The others had struck too far
to one side.
"'Now I can go back,' I said to myself. But I walked very fast going
back.
"In the _boyau_ it was not so bad. A French _avion_ had come up and
chased away the Boche.
"I thought of the things I had done and hoped that having done them
once I could do them again. But I was not sure. I was afraid. I knew
that. I have always been afraid, and there has always been the question
in my mind if my fear would conquer or if I would conquer my fear.
"There was the time when it became necessary to take a message from
our support trenches to our advanced lines in the _Bois des Corbeaux_.
There was a _tir de barrage_ to be crossed and volunteers were called
for. I was chosen.
"By that time I had formed the theory that a man can do anything if
his duty demands it of him and he will keep that in his mind. It was a
part of the thought that came to me that first day in the _boyau_ and
I developed it later in the long nights. The first day I had no really
coherent thoughts, only a great fear of my own fear. Afterward I found
that I could control it, if there was a reason. And then I found that
the reason was France.
"Of course, you may say that it was France that made me volunteer, but
I do not think so. I think it was shame--shame that I feared to go when
others went. With all the good reasons that I had for not going, with
the doctor's word, I knew, nevertheless, it was fear that kept me back.
It was because I could not tell the truth to my wife and friends and
neighbours that I went.
"Only afterward did I find out that a great duty will take a man any
place with a calm mind. I stood against German attacks. I was in
counter attacks. I lay out in shell holes, helping to hold a line
where there were no trenches. I never forgot my fear, but I thought of
France, my country, my duty; and though I shivered and the cold sweat
rolled off me, I held steady.
"Have you ever seen a _tir de barrage_? You can walk up to it and draw
a line with a surveyor's chain on the ground, marking exactly the
limit where the shells fall, and all beyond that line will be a mass of
boiling earth, like waves in a storm dashing on a rocky coast. There
is no interval between the explosions. They are constant, unremitting,
one following so closely on another that their detonations mingle in a
steady roar."