Elena’s Reviews > Testament of Youth > Status Update

Two orderlies, hastily summoned from adjacent wards by one of my few convalescent patients, finally rescued my 5-foot-3 from its predicament, and as they strapped the insane giant into bed I sat by my table with a beating heart, listening to his fury exploding in a torrent of such expressive language as had not yet assailed my innocent ears even in 2.5 years of Army life. [2/2]

I had not underrated the strenuousness of my ward; indeed, it contained possibilities hitherto unrealized–as I knew one night after I have been chased up and down the hut by a stark naked 6-foot-4 New Zealander in the fighting stage of delirium. [1/2]

After barely a second's hesitation I took the pale fingers [of an injured German officer's] in mine, thinking how ridiculous it was that I should be holding this man's hand in friendship when perhaps, only a week or two earlier, Edward up at Ypres has been doing his best to kill him.

Waiting, watching, suspense, mourning–will there never be anything else in life. I am so weary of it all–but I bow my head before the storm now, I don't try to fight it any more. I no longer expect things to go well for me; I don't know that I even ask that they shall. All I ask is that I may fulfill my own small weary part in this War in such a way as to be worthy of Them, who die and suffer pain.

I have got used to facing the long empty years ahead of me if I survive the War, but I have always before me the realization of how empty they are and will be, since he will never be there again.

It's absurd to say time makes one forget; I miss him as much as ever I did. One recovers from the shock, just as one gradually would get used to managing with one's left hand if one had lost one's right, but one never gets over the loss, for one is never the same after it.