With Haig on the Somme

by D. H. Parry

"And I can go one better than that," grunted another voice. "I have been wounded five times, and they've patched me up and sent me back again, and my wife has died since I have been at the front. I am waiting for my sixth wound, and I hope it will find the heart."

Dennis gathered from such and other scraps of conversation all around him that the little British cavalry dash had been witnessed from the trench they had just left, and that the spirits of the battalion had not been improved by the sight. They obeyed their orders like sheep, but they were sheep that had gone astray, and their confidence in their leaders' powers to lead them back into the path of victory was growing less every day.

Stopping every now and then, and waiting sometimes a quarter of an hour at a stretch, the train took a terrible time to reach the vicinity of Péronne, although the distance was little more than ten miles, and Dennis found it difficult to keep his patience under control; but at last glimmering lights showed in the distance, lights that were reflected in wavy lines on the marshes that surrounded the town, and speculation became rife in the truck.

"I wonder if they will put us in the barracks, or shall we go into billets?" said somebody in the darkness. "Billets, I hope. It would be heaven to sleep in a bed again with soft pillows, and to make the housewife clean one's things, and kick her if she did not do them properly."

Everyone watched the lights with keen interest, but to their disappointment they passed away behind. The train went swaying and clinking on; and when it reached its destination at last, there was nothing to be seen but a wood of tall trees topping a ridge against the fitful moonlight.

Somewhere beyond the ridge was the sound of gunfire again, striking strangely familiar on the ears that had almost lost it at times during the journey.

"Get out!" shouted the sergeants. "Have you pigs gone to sleep? Fall in here beside the line!" And, extricating their legs with some difficulty, they scrambled over the edge of the trucks, dropped down, and sorted themselves somehow into sections and companies after much bullying and some blows struck.

Dennis found himself between the repeatedly wounded man and the private who had been three times to Poland, and presently the battalion was formed up four deep and marched.

As they swung off it began to rain.

For an hour they continued their route, getting uncomfortably damp during the process; and then they were halted and told that they might lie down. Some of the men lit their pipes, and Dennis would have dearly loved a cigarette; but he was afraid that the odour might betray him, so he contented himself with curling up between his two new acquaintances and went to sleep.