Here are the quotations for next week (August 7th to 13th):
1.…Despair upon despair, misery upon misery, fear after fear, each causing
their distinct and separate woe, packed in upon me for an unrecorded
length of time, until at last they blurred together, and I heard a click
in my brain like the click in the ear when one descends in a diving bell,
and I knew that …for the moment, the worst was at an end…
2. …Shahbaz Khan began to call again: 'They are below us. I can see them.
For the pity of God come over to me, Hafiz Ullah ! My father slew ten of
them. Come over !'
Hafiz Ullah answered in a very loud voice, 'Mine was guiltless. Hear ye,
men of the Night, neither my father nor my blood had any part in that sin.
Bear thou thine own punishment, Shahbaz Khan.'…
3. …I conceived the whole pressure of our dead of the Boer War, flickering
and reforming as the horizon flickered in the heat; the galloping feet of
a single horse, and a voice well-known that passed chanting ribaldry along
the flank of a crack battalion … the finale was to be manoeuvres abandoned
and a hurried calling off of all arms by badly frightened Commandants -
the men themselves sweating with terror though they knew not why…
The sources of this week’s extracts (July 31st to August 6th) are as follws:
1. (…There are not many happinesses so complete as those that are snatched
under the shadow of the sword.) This is from “Without Benefit of Clergy”
in Life's Handicap.
2. (…'…I went, crying like a jackal, to the appointed place which was near
the byre of the headman's house…) This is from “In Flood Time” in
Soldiers Three and Other Stories.
3. (… He had not worked for thirty years in the dark without knowing that
the pit was no place for pretty women.) This is from “At Twenty-two” in
Soldiers Three and Other Stories.
If you are following the progress of the NRG you may wish to note that we
have recently published Lisa Lewis's notes on “The Elephant’s Child” and
John McGivering’s notes on “Dray Wara Yow Dee”. The latter includes many
references we have been unable to trace, and we will be glad to have
suggestions from students of India or Old India Hands.
All good wishes, John R
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