Normal life had been left utterly behind and there was nothing to remind one of it save perhaps that "Report on New Mexico" still there on the dusty table.
But there was the heat; there were the wheeling, circling clouds of flies, now in lines, now in squares, now broken like smoke, now dim like vapour; there was that old familiar smell of dust and flesh, chemicals and blood; there were the men dying and broken, fighting like giants, defeating fears and terrors that hung like grey shadows about the doors and windows of the house....

Every incident and experience that we had had at the war, every incident and experience that I have related in these pages seemed to be gathered into this house....

As I look back upon it now it seems, without any extravagance at all, the very heart of the fortress of the enemy.

I do not mean in the least that life was solemn or pretentious or heavy.

It was careless, casual, as liable to the ridiculous intervention of unimportant things as ever it had been; but it was life pressed so close to the fine presence of Fate that you could hear the very beating of his heart.