"For a man who loves his country, there is nothing harder than to be a coward and know it. I went at last because I could not stand the torture of failing to do my duty. No one else knew. I had been sent back by the doctors. I was blameless before the community. But I knew it was because I was afraid to be hurt, afraid to die. So when they called the class 1917 I went. "They sent me to Verdun. Can you imagine what that meant to me? It was in the very midst of the German attack on the left bank of the Meuse. I had been drafted into a veteran regiment with a lot of others to help fill up the gaps, and I joined just in time to go into the front line. "You know how the papers were filled at that time with the terrors of the Verdun fighting. It was not of the bravery of our troops that I read, but of the terrors. I don't know how I ever got into line on the day we marched from the rear to go to the front. Everything I did was mechanical. We were called before daylight; we had a cup of coffee; we were marching along the road. "I had managed it up to then without giving myself away. True, I talked little to my comrades, and probably that saved me. But the morning we marched to the front, what saved me then I don't know, except possibly because I said nothing. I was unable to speak. I was numb with fear. I was sick. My stomach turned. I walked with my head down and my feet dragged like great weights. "You know, at that time you could always hear at Verdun the pounding of the big guns. I had heard it for days, while my regiment was in repose. I used to go out in the woods by myself and listen to it and terrify myself by thinking what it would be like to be under that rain of shells. A foolish thing to do, but for more than a year, nearly two years, I had been under the obsession of my fear. I could no longer control it." III--"WE WERE MARCHING TO INFERNO" "And then we were on the road, marching toward that inferno. By imperceptible degrees the pounding grew louder. I moved mechanically because I was in the ranks, with a man on each side of me and one in front and one behind. I had to go on. My will could not control my movements. I was part of a machine. The machine went toward the pounding and I went with it. That was all, except that once I vomited. "Mind you, I had never really heard a shell, only the distant sound of the explosions. We had been marching nearly two hours, when I heard my first shell. There was a long, thin whine some place in the air. It was a new sound, and it was so strange to me that I raised my head for the first time since we started on the march. The man next to me laughed. "'A shell,' he said. "I looked all around me. I tried to stop to see the path of that queer whine, but the man behind me prodded me on. Several of them laughed. "'You will hear plenty more,' they said. "They thought I was eager for them.