les in which the men stood up to their thighs in
liquid mud. When the C.O. arrived to take over the headquarters' dug-out
he found it blown to pieces. Within lay the bodies of the previous
occupants--four officers. Another dug-out was finally found. It was deep
in a bank at the end of a narrow passage twenty feet long. Within was a
chamber six feet long, four broad and four high, and in this place, so
horribly like a grave, the C.O., second-in-command, and adjutant lived
for three days and four nights. A candle gave light, and whenever a
shell burst above the flame jerked out. The sergeant-major and the
orderlies and servants lived in the tunnel, squatting on their haunches
in the mud. Outside there were no other dug-outs at all. The shelling
was continuous, but the cold was far worse. Men sank in the mud and
remained motionless for hours. Many fell into shell holes and had to be
hauled out with twisted telephone wires. The wounded suffered horribly.
Owing to the mud and the German barrage no supplies could be brought up,
and it was impossible to light braziers. On the fourth night relief
came, but it was daylight before the last company sucked itself out of
its mudholes and waded back in full view of the enemy. Fortunately a
blinding snowstorm swept down from the north and hid all movement just
when it seemed certain that disaster would occur. Every available
vehicle was sent up to meet the battalion, but there was a long walk
before these could be reached. The men crept along on sodden, swollen
feet--no gumboots had been obtainable. They came along in groups, now of
two or three, now of six or seven, or one by one. They were bent like
old men, and staggered as they walked, their faces set and grey. The
most terrible thing of all was the utter silence. Snow muffled the fall
of the dragging feet; it lay thick on the masses of ruins in the
shattered empty villages; and when the brigade major's greeting rang
out men shrank and looked fearful at the sudden sound. Yet when I spoke
to any, as they staggered through the snow past the point whither I had
gone to meet them, life flickered up for a moment from the depths of
that final exhaustion. 'What price Charlie Chaplin now, sir!' said one
man whose wavering footsteps led him hither and thither. And another in
simple words summed up the heroic simple spirit of them all: 'Well,
we've keepit up the reputation o' the auld mob, onyway.' Indomitable
men! Who could ever vanquish you