at does it
matter? There's few of us left."

We entered the main communication trench, one just like the others,
narrow and curving round buttresses at every two or three yards. The
floor was covered with blood, not an inch of it was free from the dark
reddish tint.

"My God, my God," said the 23rd man, and he seemed to be repeating the
phrase without knowing what he said. "The wounded have been going down
all night, all morning and they're only beginning to come."

A youth of nineteen or twenty sat in a niche in the trench, naked to
the waist save where a bandaged-arm rested in a long arm-sling.

"How goes it, matey?" I asked.

"Not at all bad, chummie," he replied bravely; then as a spasm of (p. 202)
pain shot through him he muttered under his breath, "Oh! oh!"

A little distance along we met another; he was ambling painfully down
the trench, supporting himself by resting his arms on the shoulders of
a comrade.

"Not so quick, matey," I heard him say, "Go quiet like and mind the
stones. When you hit one of them it's a bit thick you know. I'm sorry
to trouble you."

"It's all right, old man," said the soldier in front. "I'll try and be
as easy as I can."

We stood against the wall of the trench to let them go by. Opposite us
they came to a dead stop. The wounded man was stripped to the waist,
and a bandage, white at one time but now red with blood, was tied
round his shoulder. His face was white and drawn except over his cheek
bones. There the flesh, tightly drawn, glowed crimson as poppies.

"Have you any water to spare, chummy?" he asked.

"We've been told not to give water to wounded men," I said.

"I know that," he answered. "But just a drop to rinse out my mouth!
I've lain out between the lines all night. Just to rinse my mouth, (p. 203)
chummy!"

I drew the cork from my water bottle and held it to his lips, he took
a mouthful, paused irresolutely for a moment and a greedy light shone
in his eyes. Then he spat the water on the floor of the trench.

"Thank you, chummy, thank you," he said, and the sorrowful journey was
resumed.

Where the road from the village is cut through by the trench we came
on a stretcher lying on the floor. On it lay a man, or rather, part of
a man, for both his arms had been blown off near the shoulders. A
waterproof ground sheet, covered with mud lay across him, the two
stumps stuck out towards the stretcher-poles. One was swathed in
bandages, the other had come bare,