We were in the Somme for several months. The mud was up to our knees
almost all the time. We were perishingly cold and very rarely dry.
There was no natural cover. When we went up forward to observe, we
would stand in water to our knees for twenty-four hours rather than go
into the dug-outs; they were so full of vermin and battened
flies. Wounded and strayed men often drowned on their journey back
from the front-line. Many of the dead never got buried; lives couldn't
be risked in carrying them out. We were so weary that the sight of
those who rested for ever, only stirred in us a quiet envy. Our
emotions were too exhausted for hatred--they usually are, unless some
new Hunnishness has roused them. When we're having a bad time, we
glance across No Man's Land and say, "Poor old Fritzie, he's getting
the worst of it." That thought helps.
An attack is a relaxation from the interminable monotony. It means
that we shall exchange the old mud, in which we have been living, for
new mud which may be better. Months of work and preparation have led
up to it; then one morning at dawn, in an intense silence we wait with
our eyes glued on our watches for the exact second which is zero
hour. All of a sudden our guns open up, joyously as a peal of
bells. It's like Judgment Day. A wild excitement quickens the
heart. Every privation was worth this moment. You wonder where you'll
be by night-fall--over there, in the Hun support trenches, or in a
green world which you used to sing about on Sundays.
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