We floundered around for several hours, but it was quite impossible to do anything in the nature of serious work—the line was new to us, and the difficulty of finding the posts was increased by persistent machine-gun fire and the most devilish weather imaginable. The ground was in an awful state, and it often took us twenty minutes to move a hundred yards—the men swore sublimely and their humour was the only dryness in the night.
On the return journey we struck some unpleasant shell-fire, and mud wallowed with enthusiasm. Browning anticipated the Great War when he wrote—
“Will sprawl—
Flat on his belly in the pit’s much mire,
With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin,
And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush,
And feels about his spine small eft-things course,
Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh.”
Twice we got lost in the woods and finally I had to give up all hope of finding the lake track. We returned the long way, but even so the tracks were knee-deep and I could feel the water trickling in over the tops of my field boots. Sometimes it would be such a relief if only one could cry!
The men had a drop of rum when we got back, and it was about 4 a.m. when I crawled into my flea bag. A family of beetles played, “Come and sit on my chair” across my toes, and an old brown rat wanted to keep me company. I turned him out three times, but the poor devil was so persistent and so pathetic that finally I let him stop. Immediately I fell asleep he came and stroked my hair in gratitude and I, misunderstanding his intentions, turned him out for good and all. But have you ever tried to sleep in your soaking wet clothes, with your head two feet under a sheet of corrugated iron on which it is raining hard? I tried, but the rain and the beetles were against me. I got up, and the morning and the evening were the first day.