'It all gets on my nerves, the mud, and the cold, and the futile Brigadiers, and all the damned eyewash we have nowadays ... never having a decent wash, and being cramped up in a dug-out the size of a chest-of-drawers with four boot-faces ... where you can't move without upsetting the candle and the food, or banging your head ... and getting lousy. And all those endless ridiculous details you have to look after day after day ... working-parties ... haversack rations ... has every man got his box-respirator?... why haven't you cleaned your rifle?... as if I cared a damn!... No, I won't say that ... but there you are, you see, it's on my nerves.... But sometimes' (and though I sympathized I was glad there was a 'but') 'when I think of some of the bogus people who've been out, perhaps once, and come home after three months with a nice blighty in the shoulder, and got a job, and stayed in it ever since ... I feel I can't do that either, and run the risk of being taken for one of them....' 'I don't think there's any danger of that,' I remarked. 'I don't know--one "officeer" is the same as another to most people.... And then, you know, although you hate it, it does get hold of you somehow--out there ... and after a bit, when you've got used to being at home you get restless.... I know I did last time, and sometimes I do now.... I don't say I hunger for the battle, I never want to be in a "stunt" again ... but you feel kind of "out of it" when you read the papers, or meet somebody on leave ... you think of the amusing evenings we used to have.... And I rather enjoyed "trekking" about in the back areas ... especially when I had a horse ... wandering along on a good frosty day, and never sure what village you were going to sleep in ... marching through Doullens with the band ... estaminets, and talking French, and all the rest of it....