Poor Billy! His was a nature that was never intended for the business of killing; he was in constant dread and his nerves were always on edge when he was within shelling distance of the enemy, and he couldn't seem to shake off the terrible fear that was ever present except when in the top-notch excitement of going over; that was the only moment that he was able to throw off the blighting shadow that haunted him. Then indeed have I seen him throw the very first instincts of prudence to the winds and hurl himself into places where "angels fear to tread." But after the mad frenzy of the charge, with its accompaniment of shooting, stabbing, killing and maiming, he would collapse, and it would be some hours before he could regain his wonted composure.
The fire gradually slackened, our spirits began to revive, nature commenced to reassert herself, and we made our way to the cookhouse. We got our mess-tins filled with bread, cheese and jam, puddled our way to the dugout and fell to with the relish of healthy, hungry, tired men who had fasted several hours. We gathered in the dugout occupied by Billy and myself. Feeling thoroughly rejuvenated, someone suggested a game to pass the time until mail arrived, and the well-worn deck was produced. Billy was sitting on my right hand and held cards that ought to have cleaned up, but he seemed to have lost the first instinct of a poker player, and I couldn't refrain from telling him he ought to confine himself to checkers. He whispered to me, "Reg, I can't get that out of my head." "What's that?" I asked.
"Fritz has my number; my time's nearly up and I know it." "Oh, hell!" I exclaimed, with a good-natured impatience, and giving him a poke in the ribs, "Forget it!"
The rest of the fellows chimed in with recollections of several fellows who persisted in saying that their number was up, and who were now pushing poppies, and the little Cockney murmured, "The poor beggars, and if they had kept their mouths shut they'd 'ave been with us yet."
It is a strange philosophy, but it is prevalent up and down the line.
At that moment the mail arrived, and Billy forgot his premonition for the time, for along with letters from his mother and sister, there was a photograph from his sweetheart that he showed me with suppressed joy.
"I say, fellows, what do you think of that for good time," said one, "my letters were both mailed on the 13th and this is only the 29th."
"That's a rum go," says the Cockney, "mine, too, was mailed on the 13th."
An examination of the mailing dates of our letters revealed the somewhat startling coincidence that every single letter we got that night had been mailed on the 13th. I mentally cursed the fateful number, but the news from home overshadowed the thought, as it did everything else, and I was careful to do everything I could to prevent its recurrence in the conversation. And, besides, the British soldier's fatalism, that death will come when it will come, prevented for long any gloom or oppressiveness in the atmosphere that might have been engendered by the time-old superstition. It was only in the exceptional cases when a soldier got into his head the premonition that his number was up that his spirits took a drop. I wish it were possible to convey in exact language the wonderful spirit of the men under circumstances and conditions endured by no soldiers in any other war since primeval man enforced his claims with his club.
Every man in the squad got letters and parcels that evening, and, all things considered, it was a happy bunch that left us to seek their bunks in their own dugouts. Billy and I remained up awhile after the others had gone, chatting about the home folks and, particularly, about his sweetheart, for at every opportunity he would turn the talk in her direction; he was positive there was no other girl quite so sweet as Aileen, for that was her name, and there was nothing for me to do but affirm everything he said.