“‘I’m sick of parading,
Through cold and wet wading,
Or standing all day to be shot in a trench!
I’m tired of marching,
Pipe-claying and starching,
How neat we must be to be shot by the French.’
That’s what the men thought of it a hundred years ago. Then, they had to pipeclay their belts, two whacking great chest-constricting cross-belts. And their officers didn’t arrange for them to play football, every time they went out to rest. In fact they didn’t go out to rest. They just stayed in the line.”
“It wasn’t very dangerous, was it?”
“There wasn’t the shell-fire, of course, but what about disease?”
“They were regulars.”