more besides——war, real war, stripped of glory. For what chance has a man against a shell? And how does the awful suffering of trench life compare with the thrilling battles of the Revolution. I don't mean that it doesn't take ten times the nerve and the endurance, but there's the rub, for we have become machines, not men. I know God will protect us over here, but you realize how absolutely weak and helpless you are when a load of dead are brought in, some with arms and legs gone, others with heads and trunks mixed together; and quite often you learn there wasn't anything left to bring.
This matter of being under shellfire for the first time and of trying to drive back in the dark from Esnes, gives one a queer feeling. Payne told me on the boat coming over that he wasn't a Christian and that he didn't believe in prayer. But he said to me yesterday that he had prayed for the first time in his life out there on the Esnes road. Just as he was rounding "Kelly's Corner," a "77" landed in the road in front of him. Then two more shells came, one in the field to his right and the other a few yards behind him. "Why, Doolie," he said afterwards, "there wasn't anything else to do except to pray. I felt so little, so absolutely helpless, that I had to ask God for help. I got it too. That fourth shell didn't explode."
