tely deserted. Nothing moves upon the skyline.
Little puffs of smoke momentarily appear above it, which he knows are
caused by the bursting of our shrapnel. He begins to feel he is really
in the fight, but it is just altogether opposite to what he expects.
It is commonplace and disappointing to a degree. He sees the gunners
busy on the left, the horses standing behind them as if all the
whistling sounds are only a rain-shower. There is a small stone in
front of him, just half the size of his helmet. He knows it is not
half big enough to cover him. All his preconceived ideas of a fight
are crumbling away. Here they are being led out to lie on the grass to
be potted at, and not allowed to reply. But then, as he looks at the
opposite hill, he sees nothing to fire at. A group of red-capped
officers walk their horses along the line left behind them. He
recognises the General in command. They stop, and one of the General's
aides-de-camp dismounts and opens a paper parcel, from which the
General takes a sandwich and bites a big semicircular piece out of it.
He finds it hard to realise that this is a battle and that this is the
General commanding. In all pictures of battles that he has seen from
his youth upwards the General is seated on a horse poised on two legs,
and waving a sword or pointing with a marshal's baton. And here is a
General with a sandwich with a big bite out of it, who points with the
sandwich-hand instead. And then he begins to wonder, with all this
multitudinous whistling, that nobody seems to be hit. Then the order
is given to advance again. He feels a tremendous disinclination to
leave the stone, and waits to see the other men around him get up.
They all get up except the fellow on his right. Reaching over with his
rifle, he pokes him in the ribs. He then hits him on the shoulder with
it. Thinking he is asleep, he tips off his helmet from behind. His
eyes are quite open; and then, like a douche of cold water, comes the
consciousness that this man is dead. A feeling to get away from that
corpse more than any other brings him amongst his comrades a few yards
in advance, who are already firing and lying flat. He keeps blazing
away mechanically at the innocent-looking hill opposite. His rifle is
hot in his moist hands. An order to "cease fire" is given, and then
there is another long interval of waiting. The whole business seems
waiting. It isn't a bit like a proper sort of fight. There is nobody
to fight; but