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Nerves are queer things, for frequently the man of a nervous, highly strung temperament is the coolest in action. Some men, too, get shell-shock a hundred yards from a bursting shell, while others are knocked down and buried and never even tremble. Men have the power of speech taken from them for months and as suddenly have it restored.
"It must be shell-shock, and a very bad case probably supposed to be cured, and sent up here to recuperate," thought Colwyn. "I'll keep an eye on him." As Colwyn resumed his breakfast it occurred to him that some of the other guests might have been alarmed by the young man's behaviour, and he cast his eyes round the room to see if anybody else had noticed him.
I suspect that the real reason why Penreath left London and sought refuge in Norfolk under another name was because he had been discharged from the Army through shell-shock. He wanted to get away from London and hide himself from those who knew him. To his wounded spirit the condolences of his friends would be akin to taunts and sneers.
When the waiter had finished pouring out the coffee and noiselessly departed, the young man tasted it with an indifferent air, pushed it from him, and resumed his former occupation of staring out of the window. "He seems quiet enough now," observed Colwyn, turning to his companion. "What do you think is the matter with him shell-shock?"
Often it is the destruction of the nerve tissues by concussion, or actual physical damage to the brain; sometimes it is a shock of horror unbalancing the mind, but that is more rare. It is not generally the slight, nervous men who suffer worst from shell-shock. It is often the stolid fellow, one of those we describe as being utterly without nerves, who goes down badly. Something snaps in him.
He was very taciturn, but he was quiet and gentlemanly in his behaviour. His temperature and pulse were normal, but he slept badly, and twice he complained of pains in the head. Witness attributed the pains in the head to the effect of shell-shock. He had seen no signs which suggested, to his mind, that prisoner was an epileptic.
I'll have no more suspicions or spying, but I'll ask her if there is anything wrong: say I thought there was from her manner and ask her the direct question. Will that please you?" "And get well snubbed for your pains?" Hilliard returned. "You've tried that once already. Why did you not persist in your inquiries about the number plate when she told you about the driver's shell-shock?"
May 30th, 1915. My darling Anne, Queenie will have told you about Colin. He was through all that frightful shelling at Ypres in April. He's been three weeks in the hospital at Boulogne with shell-shock had it twice and now he's back and in that Officers' Hospital in Kensington, not a bit better. I really think Queenie ought to get leave and come over and see him. Eliot was perfectly right.
Another came in, helped along by two other men; he was a raving lunatic, his eyes ghastly and horrible to look upon, and he was foaming at the mouth, and gibbering wildly. "Shell-shock," said the doctor, close beside me; "bad case too, poor chap! Here, put him into this ambulance; three men had better go with him to look after him." "Do you get many cases like that?" I asked the doctor.
But there would be a limit I should think. How your brother, with a letter like that in his hands, could refuse to look at what you were trying to make him see ..." "He had a theory, that began when we were in New York together as a sort of joke, that I was a case of shell-shock. So whenever there has been anything really uncomfortable to face, he has always had that to fall back upon."
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