plained at once. The attention of the enemy's
rifles and machine-guns was naturally directed to the platoon or
section advancing, even when they had completed their rush.
Directly one saw a party getting slated, one took advantage of it
to advance oneself, in turn drawing fire, but taking care to
finish the rush before being properly ranged on. One seldom
halted long enough to open covering-fire, and besides, there was
nothing to fire at. Despite the very short halt, it is no
exaggeration to say that I have seen men go to sleep between the
rushes.

Shell-bursts provided excellent cover to advance behind.
Individuals, such as runners, adopted a zigzag course with
success; we lost very few. Platoons and companies got mixed, but
it was not difficult to retell off. Perhaps control was easier
owing to very little rifle-fire from our side and the majority of
enemy shells landing on the supports. There was no question of
men taking insufficient cover; they melted into the sand after
five minutes with an entrenching tool, and during the actual
advance they instinctively took advantage of every depression.
Officers had no wish to stand up and direct; signallers lay flat
with telephones. Stretcher-bearers did not attempt to work in
front of the wall. Lewis-gunners suffered; they carried gun and
ammunition on the march (there were no mules), and the men were
tired; their rushes were not so fast as the platoon advances.

To G.A., lying waiting, before he was hit, came up his sergeant and
said, 'That's Mr. Hall over there, sir. I can see him lying dead.' But
G.A. had thoughts which pressed out even grief for his dead friend. 'I
shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time.' Shakespeare might have
added these men to those Time stood still withal. For over four hours
they lay, within three hundred yards of their invisible foe, under the
sleet of bullets. McInerney told me afterwards that it was the heaviest
rifle-fire he had known, except the Wadi.[13] The Wadi was the one
which made the deepest impression of horror, of all those dreadful and
useless slaughters in Aylmer's and Gorringe's attempt to relieve
Kut--made this impression, that is, so far as (to paraphrase Macaulay)
there _is_ a more or less in extreme horror. And McInerney had seen the
1915 fighting in Flanders. Fortunately the enemy kept most of his
shells for farther back. We got plenty in the ruins. Bu