To
have been there by oneself would have been most disturbing, but the
men about me seemed to regard it as perfectly ordinary and normal. I
steadied myself by their example.
We came to a point where our Major was waiting for us, turned out of
the road, followed him down a grass slope and so into a valley. Here
gun-pits were in the process of construction. Guns were unhooked and
man-handled into their positions, and the teams sent back to the
wagon-lines. All day we worked, both officers and men, with pick and
shovel. Towards evening we had completed the gun-platforms and made a
beginning on the overhead cover. We had had no time to prepare
sleeping-quarters, so spread our sleeping-bags and blankets in the
caved-in trenches. About seven o'clock, as we were resting, the
evening "hate" commenced. In those days the evening "hate" was a
regular habit with the Hun. He knew our country better than we did,
for he had retired from it. Every evening he used to search out all
communication trenches and likely battery-positions with any quantity
of shells. His idea was to rob us of our _morale_. I wish he might
have seen how abysmally he failed to do it. Down our narrow valley,
like a flight of arrows, the shells screamed and whistled. Where they
struck, the ground looked like Resurrection Day with the dead elbowing
their way into daylight and forcing back the earth from their eyes.
There were actually many dead just beneath the surface and, as the
ground was ploughed up, the smell of corruption became distinctly
unpleasant.
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