Soldiers of the Great War Known Unto God, Cabaret Rouge Cemetery, Souchez, France. © 2013 by John M. Shea
A Soldier of the Great War Known Unto God
"And when the lights are out, and the ward is half shadow and half glowing firelight, and the white beds are quiet with drowsy figures, huddled outstretched, then the horrors come creeping across the floor: the floor is littered with parcels of dead flesh and bones, faces glaring at the ceiling, faces turned to the floor, hands clutching neck or belly; a livid grinning face with bristly moustache peers at me over the edge of my bed, the hands clutching my sheets. Yet I found no bloodstains there this morning. These corpses are silent; they do not moan and bleat in the war-zone manner approved by the War Office. They are like dummy figures made to deceive snipers: one feels that there is no stuffing inside them. . . . I don't think they mean any harm to me. They are not here to scare me; they look at me reproachfully, because I am so lucky, with my safe wound, and the warm kindly immunity of the hospital is what they longed for when they shivered and waited for the attack to begin, or the brutal bombardment to cease. . . ."
Excerpt labeled 'In the Ward (ii)' from the writings on April 24, 1917, of Siegfried Sassoon, British poet, author, Second Lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and recipient of the Military Cross for gallantry in action. Sassoon had been wounded, shot through the shoulder by a sniper, in an April 16 attack on the village of Fontaine-lès-Croisilles in the Battle of Arras.
Siegfried Sassoon Diaries 1915-1918 by Siegfried Sassoon, pp. 161–162, copyright © George Sassoon, 1983; Introduction and Notes Rupert Hart-Davis, 1983, publisher: Faber and Faber, publication date: 1983
1917-04-24, 1917, April, wounded, horror, hospital,
