A diary without dates

[Skipman]

A diary without dates by Enid Bagnold

Edited name 13:04

" I went along to-night to see and ask after the man who has his nose blown off. After the long walk down the corridor in almost total darkness, the vapour of the rain floating through every open door and window, the sudden brilliancy of the ward was like a haven. The man lay on my right on entering — the screen removed from him. Far up the ward the Sister was working by a bed. Ryan, the man with his nose gone, was lying high on five or six pillows, slung in his position by tapes and webbing passed under his arms and attached to the bedposts. He lay with his profile to me — only he has no profile, as we know a man's. Like an ape, he has only his bumpy forehead and his protruding lips — the nose, the left eye, gone he was breathing heavily. They don't know yet whether he will live. When a man dies they fetch him with a stretcher, just as he came in ; only he enters with a blanket over him, and a flag covers him as he goes out. When he came in he was one of a convoy, but every man who can stand rises to his feet as he goes out. Then they play him to his funeral, to a grass mound at the back of the hospital. "

Mike

[daggers]

Very moving. If the author was E. Bagnold (one l) she also wrote National Velvet, methinks. Rather different.

D

[Sue Light]

I used to say she was famous for writing 'National Velvet' - times change - now she's famous for being the great-grandmother of Samantha Cameron.

Sue