Explore "Men, Women and Guns" by H.C. McNeile on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
No one who has ever given the matter a moment's thought would deny, I / suppose, that a regiment without discipline is like a ship without a / rudder. True as that fact has always been, it is doubly so now, when men / are exposed to mental and physical shocks such as have never before been / thought of.
The condition of a man's brain after he has sat in a trench and suffered / an intensive bombardment for two or three hours can only be described by / one word, and that is -- numbed. The actual physical concussion, apart / altogether from the mental terror, caused by the bursting of a / succession of large shells in a man's vicinity, temporarily robs him of / the use of his thinking faculties. He becomes half-stunned, dazed; his / limbs twitch convulsively and involuntarily; he mutters foolishly -- he / becomes incoherent. Starting with fright he passes through that stage, / passes beyond it into a condition bordering on coma; and when a man is / in that condition he is not responsible for his actions. His brain has / ceased to work.