Explore "The Middle Parts of Fortune: Somme and Ancre" by Frederic Manning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
-"But thy speaking of my tongue, and I thine, most truly-falsely, must needs be granted to be much at one." -SHAKESPEARE
Bourne never slept much; as soon as he put out his cigarette and rolled himself up in his blankets, he would sleep like a log for an hour or two perhaps, and then so lightly that the least sound would wake him. It was a legend among the other men, that nobody ever woke during the night without finding Bourne sitting up and smoking a cigarette. Company guard didn't bother him in the least. It was a cushy guard, without formality; and he liked the solitude and emptiness of the night. One bathed one's soul in that silence, as in a deep, cold pool. Earth seemed to breathe, even if it were only with his own breathing, giving consciousness a kind of rhythm, which was neither of sound nor of motion, but might become either at any moment.