The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston 2 - Memoirs of an Infantry Officer by Siegfried Sassoon

Author:Siegfried Sassoon
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Literary, Classics, War & Military, Fiction
ISBN: 9781101598924
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 1930-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

I had an uncomfortable habit of remembering, when I woke up in the morning, that the War was still going on and waiting for me to go back to it; but apart from that and the times when my inmost thoughts got the upper hand of me, life at the Camp was comparatively cheerful, and I allowed myself to be carried along by its noisy current of good-humoured life. At the end of each day I found consolation in the fact that I had shortened the winter, for the new year had begun with a spell of perishing cold weather. Our First Battalion, which had been up to its neck in mud in front of Beaumont-Hamel, was now experiencing fifteen degrees of frost while carrying on minor operations connected with straightening the line. Dottrell wrote that they ‘weren’t thinking beyond the mail and the rum ration’, and advised me to stay away until the weather improved. It wasn’t difficult to feel like following his advice; but soon afterwards I went into Liverpool for what I knew to be my final Medical Board. It was a dark freezing day, and all the officers in the waiting-room looked as if they wanted to feel their worst for the occasion. A sallow youth confided in me that he’d been out on the razzle the night before and was hoping to get away with another four weeks’ home service.

There were two silver-haired Army doctors sitting at a table, poring over blue and white documents. One, with a waxed moustache, eyed me wearily when I came into the office. With a jerk of the head he indicated a chair by the table. ‘Feel fit to go out again?’ ‘Yes; quite well, thank you.’ His pen began to move across the blue paper. ‘Has been passed fit for General Ser…. ’ He looked up irritably. ‘Don’t shake the table!’ (I was tapping it with my fingers.) The other Colonel gazed mildly at me over his pince-nez. Waxed moustache grunted and went on writing. Shaking the table wouldn’t stop that pen of his!

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