As I opened the door of my billet, I heard a “strafe” getting up. There was a lively cannonade up in the line; for several minutes I listened, until it diminished a little, and began to die away. “In” to-morrow, I thought. My valise was laid out on the floor, and my trench kit all ready for packing first thing next morning. I lost no time in getting into bed. And yet I could not sleep.
I could not help thinking of the jollity of the last few hours, the humour, the apparently spontaneous outburst of good spirits; and most of all I thought of old Jim, the mainspring somehow of it all. And again I saw the picture of the concert a few nights ago, the bright lights of the stage, the crowds of our fellows, all their bodies and spirits for the moment relaxed, good-natured, happy, as they stood laughing in the warm night air. And lastly I thought again of Private Benjamin, that refined eager face, that rather delicate body, and that warm hand as I placed mine over his, squeezing the trigger. He was no more than a child really, a simple-minded child of Wales. Somehow it was more terrible that these young boys should see this war, than for the older men. Yet were we not all children wondering, wondering, wondering?... Yes, we were like children faced by a wild beast. “Sometimes I dislike you almost,” I thought; “your dulness, your coarseness, your lack of romance, your unattractiveness. Yet that is only physical. You, I love really. Oh, the dear, dear world!”
And in the darkness I buried my face in the pillow, and sobbed.
It was ten o’clock as I came in from the wiring-party in front of Rue Albert, and at that moment our guns began. We were in Maple Redoubt. The moon had just set, and it was a still summer night in early June.
“Come and have a look,” I called to Owen, who had just entered the dug-out. I could see him standing with his back to the candlelight reading a letter or something.
He came out, and together we looked across the valley at the shoulder of down that was silhouetted by the continuous light of gun-flickers. Our guns had commenced a two hours’ bombardment.
“They’re firing on C 2, down by the cemetery.”
“Yes, I hardly noticed it; our guns make such a row. By Jove, it’s magnificent.”