The Well of Loneliness

The most stupendous and heartbreaking folly of our times drew towards its abrupt conclusion. By November the Unit was stationed at St. Quentin in a little hotel, which although very humble, seemed like paradise after the dugouts.

A morning came when a handful of the members were together in the coffee-room, huddled round a fire that was principally composed of damp brushwood. At one moment the guns could be heard distinctly, the next, something almost unnatural had happened -- there was silence, as though death had turned on himself, smiting his own power of destruction. No one spoke, they just sat and stared at each other with faces entirely devoid of emotion; their faces looked blank, like so many masks from which had been sponged every trace of expression -- and they waited -- listening to that silence.