01UndatedI don't think it's possible to c-call yourself a C-Christian and... and j-just leave out the awkward bits.' -Wilfred OwenPat Barker / quote ↗
02UndatedWe are Craiglockhart's success stories. Look at us. We don't remember, we don't feel, we don't think - at least beyond the confines of what's needed to do the job. By any proper civilized standard (but what does that mean now?) we are objects of horror. But our nerves are completely steady. And we are still alive.Pat Barker / quote ↗
03UndatedThe sky darkened, the air grew colder, but he didn't mind. It didn't occur to him to move. This was the right place. This was where he had wanted to be.Pat Barker / quote ↗
04UndatedEverything stinks: creosote, bleach, disinfectant, soil, blood, gangrene.The military authorities say uniforms must be preserved at all costs, but that means manhandling patients who are in agony. Cut them off, says Sister Byrd, and she's the voice of authority here, in the Salle d'Attente, not some gold-braid-encrusted crustacean miles away from blood and pain, so cut they do, snip, snip, snip, snip, as close to the skin as they dare.On either side of Paul as he cuts are two long rows of feet: yellow, strong, calloused, scarred where blisters have formed and burst repeatedly. Since August they've done a lot of marching, these feet, and all their marching has brought them to this one place.Pat Barker / quote ↗
05UndatedI had him in my cab once.Who? Neville askedRupert Brooke. He was good, him. "There's some corner of a foreign field/ That is forever England".That would be the bit with my nose under it; just fucking drive, will you?Pat Barker / quote ↗
06UndatedIt's the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else's pain.Pat Barker / quote ↗
07UndatedAnd the Great Adventure - the real life equivalent of all the adventure stories they'd devoured as boys - consisted of crouching in a dugout, waiting to be killed. The war that had promised so much in the way of 'manly' activity had actually delivered 'feminine' passivity, and on a scale that their mothers and sisters had hardly known. No wonder they broke down.Pat Barker / quote ↗
08UndatedObvious choices for the east window: the two bloody bargains on which civilization claimed to be based. The bargain, Rivers though, looking at Abraham and Isaac. The one on which all patriarchal societies were founded. If you, who are young and strong, will obey me, who am old and weak, even to the extent of being prepared to sacrifice your life, then in the course of time you will peacefully inherit, and be able to exact the same obedience from your sons. Only we’re breaking the bargain, Rivers thought. All over northern France, at this very moment, in trenches and dugouts and flooded shell-holes, the inheritors were dying, not one by one, while old men, and women of all ages, gathered together and sang hymns.Pat Barker / quote ↗
10UndatedDidn’t you find it all … rather unsatisfying?”“Yes, but I couldn’t seem to see a way out. It was like being three different people, and they all wanted to go different ways.”A slight smile. “The result was I went nowhere.Pat Barker / quote ↗
11UndatedElinor retreated to the terrace where the night air on her skin felt like a hot bath. She was hurt, it had been such an onslaught. All the things she'd achieved in the past four years, the independent life she'd built for herself, seemed to count for nothing here. The only thing that mattered to her mother was finding a husband. As for painting, well, nice little hobby, very suitable, but you won't have much time for that when the children arrive.Pat Barker / quote ↗
