_
ETIENNE.
_Karl's Diary resumed_.
Sailed at 9 p.m. last night, and we are now seventeen miles off Beachy
Head. The Straits of Dover were frightful; the glare of the acetylene
flares on the barrage showed for miles. Seen from a distance it gave me
the impression of the gates of hell, through which we had to pass.
I dived, ten miles away, and went through with the tide at a depth of
forty metres.
Two hours and three quarters of suspense, and at dawn we came up,
having passed safely through the great deathtrap. At the moment there
is nothing in sight, except a little smoke on the horizon. I am going
to dive again till dusk.
2 _a.m._
We are thrashing down the Channel with a south-westerly wind right
ahead. My instructions are to work for two days between the Lizard and
Kinsale Head, and then proceed far out in the Atlantic, where the
convoys are supposed to meet the destroyers.
That Fair Island Channel experience was enough for a lifetime. Death,
quick, short and sudden, this I am ready for. But torture, slow, long
and drawn-out, is not in the bargain which in this year of grace every
civilized man and half the savages of the world seem to have had to
make with the god Mars.
As I sit in this steel, cigar-shaped mass of machinery, the question
rings incessantly in my ears: "To what object is all this war directed,
when analysed from the point of view of the individual?"
It does not satisfy any longing of mine. I have not got a lust for
battle: no one who fights has a lust for battle.
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