Ghost Watch

In the trenches the nighttime is the worst. Daytime in a front line trench is often strangely quiet, soldiers can sleep, scratch, write letters, but with evening stand-to, and the first blue Very light that curves up into the sky comes a cold tightening of the nerves, a ceaseless dread.

For ten years Dr. Hans Sattler, shell-shocked German-born Hungarian engineer has lived in a quiet Budapest suburb, trying to forget the War. Daytime it was easy, but at night he could not sleep. Recently Dr. Sattler's neighbors began to worry about the young man. They found that he left home every night, returned each morning with sleepless eyes, unshaven, his clothes muddy. Last week a local surgeon and several of Dr. Sattler's friends waited until the shell-shocked engineer left his home, followed him at a distance until he disappeared in a neighboring wood. Hours later they found him. Dr. Hans Sattler had dug himself a trench, complete with parapet and dugout. They found him crouched on the fire step, wearing his faded blue lieutenant's tunic, still fighting the war, peering wildly into the night for ghostly Italian armies.

At the Budapest state asylum last week alienists admitted that there was little hope for Ghost-watcher Dr. Sattler's mental recovery.