I shrugged my shoulders. When he got no answer he turned his head, and, our eyes meeting, he laughed. It was one of his short choky affairs. That ended our conversation. A great many fellows were going down to the sea with towels about their necks, and I wanted to join them. But Sands sat where he was, and I must wait for him to make a move. I spoke next.
“Their artillery is too much of a good thing now: it’s over the odds being plugged at with six- and eight-inch shells. There ought to be a rule, nothing bigger than three-inch allowed, anyhow from the other side.” He chuckled. I went on. “A fellow’s not safe anywhere. A man has got to sit and chance having the whole place blown in on him. It comes hard on a fellow’s nerves waiting to be blown up. You have a bad time every night where you are. It’s the worst place in the line.”
“Yes,” Sands said, “it’s pretty unhealthy about five o’clock. They have got our range properly. This evening they started to lob six-inch shells beside me. I had been relieved, but I thought I would see how many I could stand. I waited for three, and then I left. The next one came into the observing station, and blew the place to blazes. It was as well I had shifted.” He gave a series of chuckles.
Soon afterwards he went off, and I picked up a towel and joined the throng moving to the beach. Half the army bathed at sundown, and on the way home men lined up and filled water-bottles for the next day. About sunset hour the beach was filled with naked men treading over the treacherous pebbles to the water, and with others drying and dressing. The piers overflowed divers, and the waves were dotted with the heads of swimmers, and there was more laughter and shouting than through all the rest of the day. But a false note jarred this harmony. Day and night waited Beachy Bill with devilish patience. There would come a whistle, a bang, and a great spluttering on the waves or woodwork of the piers, and the divers raced for cover, and the swimmers struck out for land. Beneath the cliffs men looked into each other’s eyes and laughed nervously. And may be rose the cry for stretcher-bearers.
At breakfast-time one morning a man gathering firewood climbed too high up the opposite hill. We watched him, saying he took a risk. A sniper’s bullet hit him through the chest, and he began to roll down the hill, and as he rolled he screamed like a wounded hare. I never heard a man scream that way before. He was tangled up in a root before he had rolled many yards, and then the stretcher-bearers took charge. I don’t know what became of him; but my appetite for breakfast had lost its edge.
I was scratched myself about this time. I sat at sunset in the dug-out yarning with one of the fellows. The enemy shelled us in a happy-go-lucky way, and a piece of casing from a high-explosive shell grazed me on the side of the head. I came off with a headache and a little blood drawn; but it was a close touch.
Summer wore on. We on the Peninsula seemed no nearer victory; and the news from France and Russia was depressing. This was the time of the Russian retreat. Wisely, we were given good and bad news impartially, which made us believe the good news when it arrived. The information came by Reuter’s telegrams, which were posted daily on the biscuit boxes by the beach and on notice boards at different headquarters. Men coming down to fill water-bottles, or to bathe, crowded the announcements and read with brief comment. The reading over, they cursed the heat, the flies, and their misfortunes, and tramped uphill again. There was no heart in affairs. The old fierceness had left the enemy equally with ourselves. At long intervals one or other goaded himself into wrath; but more generally there were to be heard only the crack of snipers’ bullets, and the occasional voice of a gun.
Then were born some more rumours of reinforcements and a fresh advance; and there seemed truth in the matter when ammunition and guns appeared. Batteries of five-inch and six-inch howitzers arrived, and with them came barge loads of shells. Provision depots were formed in sheltered places in anticipation of the reinforcements. A gleam of hope lit the future.