Marching through the sloughed-up mud, through shell holes filled with putrid water, amongst most depressing conditions, I saw a working party returning to their billets. They were wet through and wrapped up with scarves, wool helmets, and gloves. Over [pg 084] their clothes was a veneer of plastered mud. They marched along at a slow swing and in a mournful way sang—
“Left—Left—Left
We—are—the tough Guys!”
Apparently there are no more words to this song because after a pause of a few beats they commenced again—
“Left—Left—Left—”
They looked exactly what they said they were.
Windmills, of which there are a good many, are only allowed to work under observation. It was found that they were often giving the enemy information, using the position of the sails to spell out codes in the same way as in semaphore; clock-hands on church towers are also used in the same way.
I saw a pathetic sight to-day. A stretcher came by with a man painfully wounded; he was inclined to whimper; one of the stretcher-bearers [pg 085] said quietly to him, “Be British.” He immediately straightened himself out and asked for a “fag.” He died that night.
We had a terrific bombardment last night; the ground shook all night and the sky was lit up for miles. The Boches used liquid fire on some new troops and we lost ground.