Don’t Mind!
It was butchers’ work. We just rained shells on the German gunners until we were deaf and choking. I don’t think a gun on the position could have been sold for scrap iron after we had finished, and the German gunners would be just odd pieces of clothing and bits of accoutrement. It seems swanky to say so, but once you get over the first shock you’ll go on chewing biscuits or tobacco when the shells are bursting all round. You don’t seem to mind it any more than smoking in a hailstorm. Then you get pulled up with a jerk when your mate on the left curls up in a heap. War is rotten, but you can even get used to working in a candle-factory. We hated smells more than we did the Germans: An Artilleryman.