Its perpetual hammering had soon its physical effect.

A sick headache crept upon me, seized me, held me.

I might look at the soldiers, sleeping now like dead men in the trench, I might look at the Red Cross flag lazily flapping in the breeze across the road, I might look at the corpse with the soiled marble feet under the tree, I might look at Trenchard and Marie Ivanovna silent and unhappy on the stretchers, on Anna Petrovna comfortably slumbering with an open mouth, I might listen to the distant batteries, to the sudden quick impatient chatter of the machine guns, to the rattling give-and-take of the musketry somewhere far away where the river was, I might watch the cool green hollows of the forest glades, the dark sleepy shadows, the bright patches of burning sky between the branches, I might say to myself that all these things together made the impression of my first battle ...

and then would know, in my heart, that there was no impression at all, no thrill, no drama, no personality--only a sick throb in my head and a cold hand upon my chest and a desire to fling myself into any horror, any danger, if I could but escape this indigestible monotony....
Once Trenchard, treading very softly as though every one around him were asleep, came across and talked to me.
"You know," he said in a whisper, "this isn't at all what I expected." "You needn't whisper," I answered irritably, "that battery's making such a noise that I can't hear anything you say." "Yes, isn't it!" he said with a little sigh.

"It's very unpleasant indeed.