The shield wall reeks of shit, and all a man wants is to be home, to be anywhere but on this field that prepares for battle, but none of us will turn and run or else we will be despised for ever. We pretend we want to be there, and when the wall at last advances, step by step, and the heart is thumping fast as a bird’s wing beating, the world seems unreal. Bernard Cornwell
About This Quote

The shield wall reeks of shit and all a man wants is to be home and anywhere but on this field that prepares for battle. He wants to be home and wherever else he can be. None of us will turn and run or else we will be despised for ever. We pretend we want to be there and when the wall at last advances, step by step, and the heart is thumping fast as a bird’s wing beating, the world seems unreal.

When we go to war, we are forced to go because we chose to go. There is no other option. When we fight in a war it is because we chose to fight.

There no experience that can prepare you for it. It’s all true.

Source: The Flame Bearer

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  1. But fate, as Merlin always taught us, is inexorable. Life is a jest of the Gods, Merlin liked to claim, and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh, he once told me, or else you'll just weep yourself to death.
  2. You will not say how you are haunted by the faces of the men you killed, how in their last gasp of life they sought your pity and you had none. You will not speak of the boys who died screaming for their mothers while...
  3. The bards sing of love, they celebrate slaughter, they extol kings and flatter queens, but were I a poet I would write in praise of friendship.
  4. Some had hurled spears first. Those spears thumped into our shields, making them unwieldy, but it hardly mattered. The leading Danes tripped on the hidden timbers and the men behind pushed the falling men forward. I kicked one in the face, feeling my iron-reinforced boot...
  5. I decided to start a war, father", I said, cheerfully, "it's so much more interesting than peace.
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