GETTING STALE—­LONGING FOR CHANGE—­
WE LEAVE THE DOUVE—­ON THE MARCH—­
SPOTTED FEVER—­TEN DAYS’ REST

The Douve trenches claimed our battalion for a long time.  We went in and out with monotonous regularity, and I went on with my usual work with machine guns.  The whole place became more and more depressing to me, and yet, somehow, I have got more ideas for my pictures from this part of the line than any other since or before.  One’s mental outlook, I find, varies very much from day to day.  Some days there were on which I felt quite merry and bright, and strode along on my nightly rambles, calmly ignoring bullets as they whisked about.  At other times I felt thoroughly depressed and weary.  As time wore on at the Douve, I felt myself getting into a state when it took more and more out of me to keep up my vigour, and suppress my imagination.  There were times when I experienced an almost irresistible desire to lie down and sleep during some of my night walks.  I would feel an overwhelming desire to ignore the rain and mud, and just coil up in a farm amongst the empty tins and rubbish and sleep, sleep, sleep.  I looked forward to sleep to drown out the worries of the daily and nightly life.  In fact, I was slowly getting ill, I suppose.  The actual rough and ready life didn’t trouble me at all.  I was bothered with the idea of the whole thing.  The unnatural atmosphere of things that one likes and looks upon as pleasing, peaceful objects in ordinary times, seemed now to obsess me.  It’s hard to describe; but the following gives a faint idea of my feelings at this time.  Instead of deriving a sense of peace and serenity from picturesque country farms, old trees, setting suns, and singing birds, here was this wretched war business hashing up the whole thing.  A farm was a place where you expected a shell through the wall any minute; a tree was the sort of thing the gunners took to range on; a sunset indicated a quantity of light in which it was unsafe to walk abroad.  Birds singing were a mockery.  All this sort of thing bothered me, and was slowly reducing my physical capacity to “stick it out.”  But I determined I would stick to the ship, and so I did.  The periodical going out to billets and making merry there was a thing to look forward to.  Every one comes up in a rebound of spirits on these occasions.  In the evenings there, sitting round the table, writing letters, talking, and occasionally having other members of the regiment in to a meal or a call of some sort, made things quite pleasant.  There was always the post to look forward to.  Quite a thrill went round the room when the door opened and a sergeant came in with an armful of letters and parcels.