Amends

I have been about ten days at the front when it happened. The whole experience of being hit by a bullet is very interesting and I think it is worth describing in detail. Hard as nails [editor (Reid)]

It was at the corner of the parapet, at five o'clock in the morning. Very early -- sign of a hardass [ed. (Reid)] This was always a dangerous time, because we had the dawn at our backs, and if you stuck your head above the parapet it was clearly outlined against the sky. I was talking to the sentries preparatory to changing the guard. Suddenly, in the very middle of saying something, I felt -- it is very hard to describe what I felt, though I remember it with the utmost vividness. He was so tough that he remembers being shot (ed.)

Roughly speaking it was the sensation of being at the center of an explosion Orwell would know what this feels like because he was tough as old jerky (ed.). There seemed to be a loud bang and a blinding flash of light all around me, and I felt a tremendous shock - no pain He obviously doesn't feel pain, only irritation (ed.), only a violent shock, such as you get from an electric terminal; with it a sense of utter weakness, a feeling of being stricken and shriveled up to nothing. The sandbags in front of me receded into immense distance. I fancy you would feel much the same if you were struck by lightning. I knew immediately that I was hit, but because of the seeming bang and flash I thought it was a rifle nearby that had gone off accidentally and shot me. All this happened in a space of time much less than a second The bullet didn't want to stick around to get fucked up by Orwell (ed.). The next moment my knees crumpled up and I was falling, my head hitting the ground with a violent bang which, to my relief, did not hurt. I had a numb, dazed feeling, a consciousness of being very badly hurt, but no pain in the ordinary sense.