The general opinion as to the hopelessness of my trying to get nearer
than thirty miles to the front had so communicated itself to me that
had I been turned back there on the quay at Folkstone, I would have
been angry, but hardly surprised.
Not until the boat was out in the channel did I feel sure that I was
to achieve even this first leg of the journey.
Even then, all was not well. With Folkstone and the war office well
behind, my mind turned to submarines as a sunflower to the sun.
Afterward I found that the thing to do is not to think about
submarines. To think of politics, or shampoos, or of people one does
not like, but not of submarines. They are like ghosts in that respect.
They are perfectly safe and entirely innocuous as long as one thinks
of something else.
And something went wrong almost immediately.
It was imperative that I get to Calais. And the boat, which had
intended making Calais, had had a report of submarines and headed for
Boulogne. This in itself was upsetting. To have, as one may say, one's
teeth set for Calais, and find one is biting on Boulogne, is not
agreeable. I did not want Boulogne. My pass was from Calais. I had
visions of waiting in Boulogne, of growing old and grey waiting, or of
trying to walk to Calais and being turned back, of being locked in a
cow stable and bedded down on straw.
Pages:
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28