"They've left off firing now," said one of my mates. "You should've seen the splinters coming in here a minute ago, pit! pit! plop! on the sandbags. It's beastly out in the open."
A man came running along the trench, stumbled into our shelter, and sat down on a sandbag.
"You're the London Irish?" he asked.
"Stretcher-bearers," I said. "Have you been out?"
"My God! I have," he answered. "'Tisn't half a do, either. A shell comes over and down I flops in the trench. My mate was standing on the parapet and down he fell atop of me. God! 'twasn't half a squeeze; I thought I was burst like a bubble.
"'Git off, matey,' I yells, 'I'm squeezed to death!'
"'Squeezed to death,' them was my words. But he didn't move, and something warm and sloppy ran down my face. It turned me sick.... I wriggled out from under and had a look.... He was dead, with half his head blown away.... Your boys are sticking to the work out there; just going on with the job as if nothing was amiss. When is the whole damned thing to come to a finish?"
A momentary lull followed, and a million sparks fluttered earthwards from a galaxy of searching star-shells.
"Why are such beautiful lights used in the killing of men?" I asked myself. Above in the quiet the gods were meditating, then, losing patience, they again burst into irrevocable rage, seeking, as it seemed, some obscure and fierce retribution.
The shells were loosened again; there was no escape from their frightful vitality, they crushed, burrowed, exterminated; obstacles were broken down, and men's lives were flicked out like flies off a window pane. A dug-out flew skywards, and the roof beams fell in the trench at our feet. We crouched under the bomb-shelter, mute, pale, hesitating. Oh! the terrible anxiety of men who wait passively for something to take place and always fearing the worst!