Goodbye to All That

by Robert Graves

I saw a man lying on his face in a machine-gun shelter. I stopped and said: ‘Stand-to, there!’ I flashed my torch on him and saw that one of his feet was bare. The machine-gunner beside him said: ‘No good talking to him, sir.’ I asked: ‘What’s wrong? Why has he taken his boot and sock off?’ ‘Look for yourself, sir!’ I shook the sleeper by the arm and noticed suddenly the hole in the back of his head. He had taken off the boot and sock to pull the trigger of his rifle with one toe; the muzzle was in his mouth. ‘Why did he do it?’ I asked. ‘He went through the last push, sir, and that sent him a bit queer; on top of that he got bad news from Limerick about his girl and another chap.’ He belonged to the Munsters – their machine-guns overlapped the left of our company – and his suicide had already been reported. Two Irish officers came up. ‘We’ve had several of these lately,’ one of them told me. Then he said to the other: ‘While I remember, Callaghan, don’t forget to write to his next-of-kin. Usual sort of letter; tell them he died a soldier’s death, anything you like. I’m not going to report it as suicide.’

Remember reading this and being amazed. It must have been horrific to be there.