"Only bloomin' rumours."
"An' no ration parties can got up—oh gawd!"
"Wot about it?"
"No ration parties means no grub an' NO rum. Wot a pore Tommy 'as got ter put up with."
The following day marching through Ypres they moved further up the Line to a camp situated near St. Jean and from whence they would make their final preparations and march towards the duckboard (a series of boards resembling actual duck-boards and raised to a height above the ground varying in accordance to the depth of water) track winding up the wasted shell-torn soil to the communication trenches.
The "atmosphere" of the place was painfully reminiscent to the survivors from the previous September of the nerve-wrecking task that had been their unfortunate lot during that Baptism of Fire. The grim devastation of the flat, water-covered countryside enforced upon the spirits something of its own desolation. Everywhere the gaunt, shell-shattered trees, through which o' nights the incessant red glow eastward penetrated just as it had four months before. Day and night the perpetual roar of artillery, the heavy shock of falling bombs, the familiar KR-UMP!
And the knowledge that the brief security of life had passed. Again, already, none knew who might not glimpse the dawn; again the hell-hot shrapnel and the writhing human flesh. To-morrow that arm may be a shattered, jagged hanging "thing" ... how firm, fine, and white it looks: smooth, strong....
You look curiously along the line of adjacent faces. Can ALL come through—impossible. Who will go under first ... will it be YOU? Wonder what it is like to die? Men had often fallen limply near by, a small round hole in the forehead and a trickle of blood. They seemed calm enough ... wonder where they went ... did they KNOW they were dead? Do you feel the bullet whistling through your brain ... do you have one last lightning thought cut short, "This is Death!" ...?
Anyhow, what of it ... others have done it. If they could, you could!
Before going up into the icy-cold of water-logged semi-trenches the feet were treated with special attention to counteract the action of continual wet and frost upon the flesh. If the utmost care is not taken, and the dreaded "trench feet" fastens its fierce grip upon the victim, there lies before him many weeks of agony in hospital, haunted daily by a chance of losing one or both feet. All this without the glad consolation of a WOUND!