"My God! my God!" he muttered, and seemed to be gasping for breath. "I suppose there are some of us left yet, but they'll be very few."
"Did you capture the trench?"
"They say we did," he answered, and it seemed as if he were speaking of an incident in which he had taken no part. "But what does it matter? There's few of us left."
We entered the main communication trench, one just like the others, narrow and curving round buttresses at every two or three yards. The floor was covered with blood, not an inch of it was free from the dark reddish tint.
"My God, my God," said the 23rd man, and he seemed to be repeating the phrase without knowing what he said. "The wounded have been going down all night, all morning and they're only beginning to come."
A youth of nineteen or twenty sat in a niche in the trench, naked to the waist save where a bandaged-arm rested in a long arm-sling.
"How goes it, matey?" I asked.
"Not at all bad, chummie," he replied bravely; then as a spasm of pain shot through him he muttered under his breath, "Oh! oh!"
A little distance along we met another; he was ambling painfully down the trench, supporting himself by resting his arms on the shoulders of a comrade.
"Not so quick, matey," I heard him say, "Go quiet like and mind the stones. When you hit one of them it's a bit thick you know. I'm sorry to trouble you."