s of t

ad fly, dragon

the trenches co

r butter-dish and

rmy cheese and l

the dusk and the d

e formation, in c

ke Tommy's zest when

puttees off and stra

elf on the banquette and looking through the periscope at the enemy's lines. "For myself I

t you fear m

ing I dread; the saucy little

ed the massive soldier who was cleaning

ont of me. I hardly knew what it was at first, but a kind of instinct told me to stand and gaze at it. The Germans had just flu

Bill, who was

the left one was winking at me. I almost turned to jelly with fear, and Lord knows how I got back round the

blurry bomb," said Bill. "For my

ha

than anythink in this

ntry on the parapet about one in the morning. The night was cold, there was a breeze crooning over the meadows between the lines, and the air was full of the sharp, penetrating odour of aromatic herbs. I felt tired and was half asleep as I kept a lazy look-out on the front where the dead are lying on the grass. Suddenly, away on the right, I heard a yell, a piercing, agonising scream, so

in the morning it was devilish. I awoke at that hour and went outside to get a breath of fresh air. The place was so eerie, the church in the rear with the spire battered down, the churchyard with the bones of the dead hurled broadcast by c

cat or a dog, all sounds become different in the dark. I could not wander round to seek the cause. Houses were battered down, rooms blocked up, cellars fille

lines. I could hear their picks and shovels busy in front, and suddenly somebody screamed "Oh! Oh! Oh!" the first loud and piercing,

ches," said Bill. "It almost ma

," said Pryor, "some of th

the sky or mined from under the ground, if a sniper doesn't snipe 'arf yer 'ead off, or gas doesn't send you to 'eaven, or flies send you to the 'orspital with disease, or rifle grenades, pipsqueaks, and whizz-b

it off the stump of his old one. He blew a puff of smoke into the air, stuck

things that you did not

d the muck fallin' into your tea, the vermin, the bloke snorin' as won't let you to sleep, the fatigues that come when ye're goin' to 'ave a snooze, the r

sweating at

"if it were not for these few things the life in the