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[Page 43]
Jan 6th
Have been down with an attack of trench fever and feel dopey. I was strangely exhilarated up to a certain point, and just amused at things.
For instance some of the boys had brought sandbags in which to hang their rations from the roof of the pill box to dodge the rats & mice; and, waking up while the others were quite fast asleep, I roared with laughter to see these hanging bags just swarming with mice, while my own stuff, near my head, was unattacked. Throughout the night my high spirits prevailed; but when the relief came, & we had to move back, my energy seemed to go suddenly, it was a misery to lift my pack to my shoulders, & my legs became quite weak. I could do no more than crawl, and dropped right out of the rush back, which it appears is always a rather helter skelter proceeding. Men passed me, saying "Shake it up, Mercer; youre liable to catch machine gun fire, here"; and I didn't care - I hardly knew where I was, and didn't care much for that either, nor for the machine guns when they started. The feeling struck me that if I was hit it would save me a lot of trouble. By the time I got back to the old dugout in the Ravine, it seemed that I had been toiling back for hours; and I had a vague remembrance of losing my waterproof, which caught on a post & was pulled out of the straps on my pack; and of being passed by an officer who urged me to get off the duck boards quickly. The next I knew was that Wells, our O.C. was saying "Come on Mercer; it's stand to!" In the trench, which is just above the Ravine, I imagined I was in a produce store, the sandbags, somehow, seeing piles of pumpkins. & the machine gun absurdly appearing to me as a parrot! Don't remember