All that day I felt that there was in me something which by all rights should have “given”: these two deaths should have made me feel different: and yet I was just the same. As I went round the trench, with Davies at my heels, talking to platoon-sergeants, examining wire through my periscope, all in the ordinary way exactly as before, I forgot all about Tommy and Robertson. Even when I came to the place where Robertson had been hit, and saw the blood on the fire-step, and some scraps of cotton wool lying about, I looked at it as you might look at a smashed egg on the pavement, curiously, and then passed on. “Am I indifferent to these things, then?” I asked myself. I had not realised yet that violent emotion very rarely comes close upon the heels of death, that there is a numbness, a blunting of the spirit, that is an anodyne to pain. I was ashamed of my indifference; yet I soon saw that it was no uncommon thing. Besides, one had to “carry on” just the same. There was always a silence among the men, when a pal “goes west”; so now Edwards and I did not talk much, except to discuss the ordinary routine.
I did not get much rest that day. In the afternoon came up a message from the adjutant that we were exploding a mine opposite the Matterhorn at 6.30; our trench was to be cleared from 80 A to the bombing-post on the left of the Loop inclusive. Edwards and I were the only officers in the company, so while he arranged matters with the Lewis-gun teams, I went off to see about getting the trench cleared. I had just sent off the “daily summary,” my copy of which is reproduced on page 179. As I came back along 78 Street, I met Davidson again. He was looking for a new site for his gun, so as to be able to get a good fire to bear on the German lines opposite the Matterhorn. I went with him, and together we found a place behind the big mine-dump to the left of 78 Street, and close to one of our rifle-grenade batteries. As he went off to get his corporal and team to bring the gun over and fix it in position, he said something in a rather low voice.
“What?” I shouted. “Couldn’t hear.”
He came back and repeated it.
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry. Yes, all right. I expect I’ll hear from the Adjutant. Thanks.”
What he said was that there would be a funeral that night at nine o’clock. Thompson and Robertson were being buried together. He thought I would like to know.
It was close on half-past six, and getting dark. The trenches were cleared, and I was waiting at the head of two platoons that strung out along 78 Street and behind the Loop. Rifles had been inspected; the men had the S.A.A. (small arms ammunition) and bomb boxes with them, ready to take back into the trench as soon as the mine had gone up. I looked at my watch.
“Another minute,” I said.
Then, as I spoke, the earth shook; there was a pause, and a great black cloud burst into the air, followed by a roar of flames. I got up on the fire-step to see it better. It is a good show, a mine. There was the sound of falling earth, and then silence.
“Come on,” I said, and we hurried back into the trench. Weird and eerie it looked in the half-light; its emptiness might have been years old. It was undamaged, as we had expected; only there was loose earth scattered all over the parapet and fire-step.