The Horrors of Prolonged Shelling

To be under a barrage of prolonged shelling simply magnified all the terrible physical and emotional effects of one shell. To me, our trilogy was an invention of hell. I hated shells as much for their damage to the mind as to the body. During prolonged shelling, I often had to restrain myself and fight back a wild inexorable urge to scream to sob and to cry. As Pella Lou dragged on, I feared that if I ever lost control of myself, under shell fire, my mind would be shattered. Each time it left me more forlorn and helpless, more fatalistic and with less confidence that I could escape the dreadful law of averages that reduced our numbers.