Or partly
reassuring like 'prisoner.' It just sends one speculating and
speculating. I can't find any one who knows where the 14th Essex are.
Things move about here so mysteriously that for all I know we may find
them in the next trench next time we go up. But there _is_ a chance for
Teddy. It's worth while bucking Letty all you can. And at the same time
there's odds against him. There plainly and unfeelingly is how things
stand in my mind. I think chiefly of Letty. I'm glad Cissie is with her,
and I'm glad she's got the boy. Keep her busy. She was frightfully fond
of him. I've seen all sorts of things between them, and I know that....
I'll try and write to her soon, and I'll find something hopeful to tell
her.

"Meanwhile I've got something to tell you. I've been through a fight, a
big fight, and I haven't got a scratch. I've taken two prisoners with my
lily hand. Men were shot close to me. I didn't mind that a bit. It was
as exciting as one of those bitter fights we used to have round the
hockey goal. I didn't mind anything till afterwards. Then when I was in
the trench in the evening I trod on something slippery--pah! And after
it was all over one of my chums got it--sort of unfairly. And I keep on
thinking of those two things so much that all the early part is just
dreamlike. It's more like something I've read in a book, or seen in the
_Illustrated London News_ than actually been through. One had been
thinking so often, how will it feel? how shall I behave? that when it
came it had an effect of being flat and ordinary.

"They say we hadn't got enough guns in the spring or enough ammunition.
That's all right now--anyhow. They started in plastering the Germans
overnight, and right on until it was just daylight. I never heard such a
row, and their trenches--we could stand up and look at them without
getting a single shot at us--were flying about like the crater of a
volcano. We were not in our firing trench. We had gone back into some
new trenches, at the rear--I think to get out of the way of the counter
fire. But this morning they weren't doing very much. For once our guns
were on top. There was a feeling of anticipation--very like waiting for
an examination paper to be given out; then we were at it. Getting out of
a trench to attack gives you an odd feeling of being just hatched.
Suddenly the world is big. I don't remember our gun fire stopping. And
then you rush. 'Come on! Come on!' say the officers. Everybody giv