Banging Away
When I opened your parcel we were banging away, and I thought how different a place it was tied up in. The fags—what a treat!—the chocolates, papers, and pipe. The last, by the way, is worth quids, for the troops have just had an issue of tobacco, and not many pipes are available; they get lost or broken. One thing we are short of, and that is matches. We all mark time on someone lighting up, and there’s a great rush on that one match: A Trooper of the Royal Horse Guards.
All’s Fair!
They say all is fair in love and war, but it’s awful to see those deadly shells flying over our head and sometimes putting some of our pals out of action. But, thank God, the wounded are picked up as soon as possible, and treated with every care that both women and men nurses can provide. In fact, I have seen men who have been badly wounded with a smile on their faces as though nothing had happened, and even while I am writing these few words under difficulty our boys are laughing and joking and singing as if we were at a picnic, and I am sure they feel quite as happy as if they were at one in reality: Pte. B. Marshall, 1st Batt. Loyal North Lancashires.
Unnerving!
Every soldier knows that the first experience of being under fire is terribly unnerving, and the best of men will admit that at times they are tempted to run away. There was a young lad of the Worcestershire Regiment who had this feeling very badly, but he made up his mind that he would conquer it, and this is what he did: he made it a practice to go out of the trenches and expose himself to German fire for a bit every day. The poor boy trembled like a leaf, but his soul was bigger than the weak little body holding it, and he went through that terrible ordeal for a week: A Sergeant of the York and Lancaster Regiment.
Caps and Helmets
In the first lot of trenches our men put their caps and helmets on the top, to give the enemy the impression we were still there. Believing the trenches were actually occupied, the Germans shelled the position for three-quarters of an hour before their cavalry discovered the ruse. Meanwhile the men in the second trenches had also placed their helmets on top, but they did not go away, and the Germans, deceived, approached within a comparatively few yards, when they were met by a tremendous volley and practically wiped out: Pte. Shepherd, 1st Lincolnshire Regiment.
Spectral
I saw the German trenches as the French guns left them. They were filled with dead, but with dead in such postures as the world has never seen since the destroying angel passed above the Philistine camp in that avenging night of Scripture. It was as though some blight from Heaven had fallen upon them. There they stood in line, rifles to shoulder, a silent company of ghosts in the grey light of dawn. It was as if a deep and sudden sleep had overtaken them—only their eyes were open. They might have been there from all eternity thus, their rifles at rest: Anonymous.