Orville Reddick Emerson, The Grave (1923)
“ But there have been so many cave-ins recently that I can never finish clearing the entrance in another week. "Sometimes I feel that I shall never clear it. But I must! I can never bear to die here. I must will myself to escape, and I shall escape! "Did not the captain often say that the will to win was half the victory? I shall rest no more. Every waking hour must be spent in removing the treacherous dirt. ”
Orville Reddick Emerson, The Grave (1923)
“ Why did I hear no sounds of fighting? It was as still as the grave. "What a horrible death to die! Buried Alive! A panic of fear swept over me. But my will and reason reasserted itself. In time, I should be able to dig myself out by my own efforts. It would take time but it could be done. "So, although I could not use my left arm as yet, I spent the rest of that day digging dirt from the entrance and carrying it back into the far corner of the dugout. ”
Orville Reddick Emerson, The Grave (1923)
“ The tremendous increase in shelling awakened me with a start, and my first impulse was to go at once into a deeper dugout, which was connected to the one I was in by an underground passageway. "It was a smaller dugout, built a few feet lower than the one I was in. It had been used as a sort of storeroom and no one was supposed to sleep there. But it seemed safer to me, and, alone, I crept into it. A thousand times since I have wished I had taken another man with me. ”
