Waiting for Daylight

mid ruins which might have been in Central Asia, and I, the last man on earth, contemplating them. There was something bumping somewhere, but it was not in Ypres, and no notice is taken in Flander

he blue, and then another, and then a cluster of them; the kind of soft little cloudlets on which Renaissance cherubs rest their chubby elbows and with fat faces inclined on their hands consider mortals from cemetery monuments. Then dul

ntents of the cellar-the wreckage of a bicycle, a child's chemise, one old boot, a jam-pot, and a dead cat. O

the deliberate approach of Fate in solitude. It stopped and saluted, and said: "I

wed by a crash in Sinister Street. My way home! S

ll it blows over, sir.

but it is not dignified to hurry when one looks like an officer. One ought to fill a pipe. I did so, and stopped to light it. I paused whi

was then swallowed up. I was alone. While looking about for possible openings I heard his voice under the road, and then saw a dark cavity, low in a broken wall, and crawled in. Feeling my way by knocking on the dark with my forehead and my shins, I descended to a lower smell of graves which was hollowed by a lighted candle in a bottle. An

old 'bus come

bitch, sir," said

but what's the

e think when I used to take 'er acrorse Ludget Circus what a 'ell of a time I'd 'ave to give 'er some day. She's a good ole t

e palsy, and the candle-li

's upset 'em. 'Ow long will this ruddy war las

t's filthy. But what

on who reckon they know all about it turn green if they heard a door slam. Learned it all in one jolly old day, too. Learned it sudden, like you gen'ally learn things you don't forge

and after a cup o' tea at Wipers I used to roll home to the park. It was easier than the Putney route. Wipers was full of civilians. Shops all open. Estaminets and nice young things. I used to like war

neglected. I can only write picture postcards. It's a pity. Well, one day it wasn't like that. It dropped

nt to look like that. We could hear a gaudy rumpus in the Salient. The civvies were frightened, but they stuck to their homes. Nothing was happening there then, and while nothing is happening it's hard to

ink about it, what with gettin' men out and

red the old 'bus, but it was done right by accident. It was certainly touch and go. I sh

you that night comin' on didn't matter much, because the place was alight. The sky was full of shrapnel, and the high-explosives were falling in the houses on fire, and spreading the red stuff like firew

rough the place where the windows used to be. Inside, the counter was upside down, and she was laying with glass and bottles on the floor. I couldn't do anythin

xcept out of the corner of the eye. I've never 'eard such a row-shells bursting, houses falling, and the place was foggy wit

in front and behind and overhead, and, thinks I, next time you're bound to get caught in this shower. Then I found my o

all I take

anywhere, take 'em where you like, Jones, ta

peed. Several times I bumped over soft things in the road and felt rather sick. We got out o' the town with the shrapnel a bit in front all the way. Then the old 'bus jibbed for a bit. Every time a shell burst near us the lunatics screamed and laug

s a good drink. I 'ad the best part of 'arf a bottle without water, and it done me no 'arm. Next mo