The conversation became riotous, questions and replies got mixed and jumbled. "I suppose we'll get to the front trench anyhow; maybe to the second. But we'll get flung back from that." "Wish we'd another bloomin' bottle of fizz." "S'pose our guns will not lift their range quick enough when we advance. We'll have any amount of casualties with our own shells." "The sergeant says that our objective is the crucifix in Loos churchyard." "Imagine killing men right up to the foot of the Cross." ...
Our red-headed platoon sergeant appeared at the top of the stairs, his hair lurid in the candle light.
"Enjoying yourselves, boys?" he asked, with paternal solicitude. The sergeant's heart was in his platoon.
"'Avin' a bit of a frisky," said Bill. "Will yer 'ave a drop?"
"I don't mind," said the sergeant. He spoke almost in a whisper, and something seemed to be gripping at his throat.
He put the bottle to his lips and paused for a moment.
"Good luck to us all!" he said, and drank.
"We're due to leave in fifteen minutes," he told us. "Be ready when you hear the whistle blown in the street. Have a smoke now, for no pipes or cigarettes are to be lit on the march."
He paused for a moment, then, wiping his moustache with the back of his hand, he clattered downstairs.
The night was calm and full of enchantment. The sky hung low and was covered with a greyish haze. We marched past Les Brebis Church up a long street where most of the houses were levelled to the ground. Ahead the star-shells rioted in a blaze of colour, and a few rifles were snapping viciously out by Hohenzollern Redoubt, and a building on fire flared lurid against the eastern sky. Apart from that silence and suspense, the world waited breathlessly for some great event. The big guns lurked on their emplacements, and now and again we passed a dark-blue muzzle peeping out from its cover, sentinel, as it seemed, over the neatly piled stack of shells which would furnish it with its feed at dawn.