I really don’t have much of a choice about my life now. Just seeing Sarah-Jayne and Charlotte Marie would maybe bring it all back to me. The memories, the times we used to share. My life and child are the ones who have to carry on living after my death, they have to bear the scars.
I’ve just found out the real reason why I am in here. The doctors told me I had inhaled gas, but it wasn’t effecting me, that I needed to be kept safe form the fighting in case of another gas attack. But that is all a lie, for I am suffering from the attack, I’ve discovered that the gas is spreading round my body, and it won’t take long now for it to take affect. I’ve been lied to, how can I trust my country now? How can I ever believe what they say?
Just thinking about little Sarah-Jayne and my loving wife makes me realise how much I want to go home. Home, oh how I love that word. Home is where I belong, I survive only at home, my safe, protected home. Where my life lies as memories in peace, away from all war.
I can still hear the bombs exploding, blowing the soldiers to pieces, throwing them high into the grey, misty air. Loosing tens of men a minute. The blood covering me, inch by inch. Men wounded wherever I turn. Body parts startling me at every move. Me, no harm has been done to yet. But the others, the other soldiers I can see, that I knew in my past life, they are the one’s feeling the pain and agony I have yet to feel. The pain is not fast, neither is the death. This is what the sworn enemies wish upon us, for us to die a slow, suffering death, dying men around us, the images of war printed on our memories to stay forever. But our people, no they don’t think of that. They don’t think of the killing, only the defending. Our plan for now, stupid as it may seem, is don’t kill all you see, but save them. Do they realise the number of dead soldiers is far greater, by thousands, then that of the living? And at every move we make, we lose another dozen soldiers.
I saw Mick, from next door but one, earlier on today, being shot in the air by a bomb landing near him. He landed in many places, torn apart by the power of the explosion. Blood and body parts falling everywhere, we carry on, knowing death awaits us. The blood, the agony, the misery and the pain. They are the images that will scar my mind, for me to live with forever, never to be erased.
This is going to be my last diary entry. I just want to say, if you are reading this Charlotte, I love you so much. You and Sarah-Jayne are the people that kept me going, you kept me alive. Thank you for being there in my happy times. My memories will keep me satisfied.
And whatever people may say, do believe in the old lie, for it is true:
“Dulce et decorum est, Pro patria mori”
Robert Lingley signing out
