When I reached the Fort, I found No. 7 Platoon already filing out of the trench area that had been condemned as dangerous.
“You’re very early, Sergeant Hayman,” I said.
I looked at my watch.
“Oh, all right,” I added, “it’s twenty to six; very well. Have you got all the bomb boxes and S.A.A. out?”
“Yes, sir. Everything’s clear.”
“Very well, then. All those men not detailed as tool and sand-bag party can get in dug-outs, ready to come back as soon as I give orders. There will probably be a bit of ‘strafing.’”
“Very good, sir.”
The Lewis-gun team emerged from its dug-out twenty yards behind the Fort, in rather a snail-like fashion. I arranged where the N.C.O. and two men should stand, just at the corner of the Fort, but in the main trench (at B in map). The rest of the team I sent back to its burrow. Edwards had made all arrangements for the other team.
Ten to six. It was a warm evening early in April, and there was a deathly calm. These hushes are hateful and unnatural, especially at “stand to” in the evening. In the afternoon an after-dinner slumber is right and proper, but as dusk creeps down it is well known that everyone is alive and alert, and a certain visible expression is natural and welcome. This evening silence is like the pause between the lightning and the thunder; worst of all is the stillness after the enemy has blown a mine at “stand to,” for ten to one he is going to blow another at “stand down.”
The sun set in a blaze of red, and in the south the evening star glowed in a deepening blue. What will have happened by the time the day has returned with its full light and sense of security?