tees. A voice said: "Wot price the
orchestra nah!" He saw teeth gleam in faces burnt almost black. Then he
looked up; the sky was blue beyond the brownish film of dust raised by
the striking shells. Noel! Noel! Noel!... He dug his fingers deep
into the left side of his tunic till he could feel the outline of her
photograph between his dispatch-case and his heart. His heart fluttered
just as it used when he was stretched out with hand touching the ground,
before the start of the "hundred yards" at school. Out of the corner of
his eye he caught the flash of a man's "briquet" lighting a cigarette.
All right for those chaps, but not for him; he wanted all his
breath--this rifle, and kit were handicap enough! Two days ago he had
been reading in some paper how men felt just before an attack. And now
he knew. He just felt nervous. If only the moment would come, and get
itself over! For all the thought he gave to the enemy there might have
been none--nothing but shells and bullets, with lives of their own. He
heard the whistle; his foot was on the spot he had marked down; his hand
where he had seen it; he called out: "Now, boys!" His head was over the
top, his body over; he was conscious of someone falling, and two men neck
and neck beside him. Not to try and run, not to break out of a walk; to
go steady, and yet keep ahead! D--n these holes! A bullet tore through
his sleeve, grazing his arm--a red-hot sensation, like the touch of an
iron. A British shell from close over his head burst sixty yards ahead;
he stumbled, fell flat, picked himself up. Three ahead of him now! He
walked faster, and drew alongside. Two of them fell. 'What luck!' he
thought; and gripping his rifle harder, pitched headlong into a
declivity. Dead bodies lay there! The first German trench line, and
nothing alive in it, nothing to clean up, nothing of it left! He
stopped, getting his wind; watching the men panting and stumbling in.
The roar of the guns was louder than ever again, barraging the second
line. So far, good! And here was his captain!

"Ready, boys? On, then!"

This time he moved more slowly still, over terrible going, all holes and
hummocks. Half consciously he took cover all he could. The air was
alive with the whistle from machine-gun fire storming across zigzag
fashion-alive it was with bullets, dust, and smoke. 'How shall I tell
her?' he thought. There would be nothing to tell but just a sort of
jagged brow