“If women were in this war, there would be no war,” said Edwards.

“I wonder,” said I.

CHAPTER XVI
WOUNDED

Lance-Corporal Allan was killed on Tuesday the 6th of June. For the rest of that day I was all “on edge.” I wondered sometimes how I could go on: even in billets I dreamed of rifle-grenades; and though I had only returned from leave a fortnight ago, I felt as tired out in body and mind as I did before I went. And this last horror did not add to my peace of mind. I very nearly quarrelled with Captain Wetherell, the battalion Lewis-gun officer, over the position of a Lewis gun. There had been a change of company front, and some readjustments had to be made. I believe I told him he had not got the remotest idea of our defence scheme, or something of the sort! My nerves were all jangled, and my brain would not rest a second. We were nearly all like that at times.

I decided therefore to go out again to-night with our wires. I had been out last night, and Owen was going to-night, but I wanted to be doing something to occupy my thoughts. I knew I should not sleep. At a quarter to ten I sent word to Corporal Dyson, the wiring-corporal, to take his men up at eleven instead of ten, as the moon had not quite set. At eleven o’clock Owen and I were out in No Man’s Land putting out concertina wire between 80A and 81A bombing posts, which had recently been connected up by a deep narrow trench. There was what might be called a concertina craze on: innumerable coils of barbed wire were converted into concertinas by the simple process of winding them round and round seven upright stakes in the ground; every new lap of wire was fastened to the one below it at every other stake by a twist of plain wire; the result, when you came to the end of a coil and lifted the whole up off the stakes was a heavy ring of barbed wire that concertina’d out into ten-yard lengths. They were easily made up in the trench, quickly put up, and when put out in two parallel rows, about a yard apart, and joined together with plenty of barbed wire tangled in loosely, were as good an obstacle as could be made. We had some thirty of these to put out to-night.

When you are out wiring you forget all about being in No Man’s Land, unless the Germans are sniping across. The work is one that absorbs all your interest, and your one concern is to get the job done quickly and well. I really cannot remember whether the enemy had been sniping or not (I use the word “sniping” to denote firing occasional shots across with fixed rifles sited by day). I remember that I forgot all about Captain Wetherell and his Lewis-gun positions, as soon as I was outside the bombing post at 80A. There were about fifteen yards between this post and the crater-edge, where I had a couple of “A” Company bombers out as a covering party. But in this fifteen yards were several huge shell-holes, and we were concealing the wire in these as much as possible. It was fascinating work, and I felt we could not get on fast enough with it. After a time I went along to Owen, whose party was working on my left. Here Corporal Dyson and four men were doing well also. All this strip of land between the trench and the crater edge was an extraordinary tangle of shell-holes, old beams and planks, and scraps of old wire. Every square yard of it had been churned and pounded to bits at different times by canisters and “sausages” and such-like. Months ago there had been a trench along the crater edges; but new mines had altered these, and until we had dug the deep, narrow trench between 80A and 81A about a fortnight ago, there had been no trench there for at least five months. The result was a chaotic jumble, and this jumble we were converting into an obstacle by judiciously placed concertina wiring.

I repeat that I cannot remember if there had been much sniping across. I had just looked at my luminous watch, which reported ten past one, when I noticed that the sky in the east began to show up a little paler than the German parapet across the crater. “Dawn,” I thought, “already. There is no night at all, really. We must knock off in a quarter of an hour. The light will not be behind us, but half-past one will be time to stop.” I was lying out by the bombers, gazing into the black of the crater. It was a warm night, and jolly lying out like this, though a bit damp and muddy round the shell-holes. Then I got up, told Corporal Evans to come in after fixing the coil he was putting up, and was walking towards 80A post, when “Bang” I heard from across the crater, and I felt a big sting in my left elbow, and a jar that numbed my whole arm.

“Ow,” I cried out involuntarily, and doubled the remaining few yards, and scrambled down into the trench.

Corporal Dyson was there.