Chapter 2. Amiens. War Memoirs 1917-1919

It was after this reconnaissance and the conference at French Divisional H.Q. that Bion had now had his first chance of a rest. Something about the morning's work had clearly upset him. He appeared to be nervous and anxious, rather pale and not by any means the self-assured person that one would have expected from somebody with as good a reputation as his. However, he and Asser were now at last able to lie down and snatch a few hours of sleep before the battle – if they could. For Asser the main obstacle to sleep was undoubtedly his excitement and pleasure at the thought of his first battle. Mixed with it, of course, there were also fears and anxieties, as might well be supposed. Yet for Bion the state of affairs was different and much

more complex: he had been frightened; he did not like being on this reconnaissance, and he did not like being in company with a person whose courage was so outstanding that he would find it easy to detect in Bion signs of the fear, the deterioration as a soldier that Bion felt he was only too well aware of himself but did not wish to communicate to others. Something had happened on the reconnaissance, yet from a certain point of view nothing could have been more peaceful.

The two of them had met at the appointed time at the small bridge over the River Luce and had then gone forward without any difficulty, on a glorious morning, towards the front-line positions. There they had finally decided, under a burst of machine-gun fire and with the advice of the infantry on whose front they were, to proceed more cautiously, going into a stooping position and finally crawling forward as best they could, making use of any cover they could find in order to advance towards the enemy without being detected or running, as Hotblack said, ‘any undue risks’. Nevertheless Bion had felt extremely frightened. Whether he was more frightened of the enemy or of Major Hotblack it would be difficult to say, but the upshot of it was that at one point he had be