f damp, earthy smell in
your nostrils, a choking sensation in your throat, for the place is
suffocating. The narrow trench is the safest, and most of the English
communication trenches are narrow--so narrow, indeed, that a man with
a pack often gets held, and sticks there until his comrades pull (p. 075)
him clear.

The communication trenches serve, however, for more purposes than for
the passage of troops; during an attack the reserves wait there,
packed tight as sardines in a tin. When a man lies down he lies on his
mate, when he stands up, if he dare to do such a thing, he runs the
risk of being blown to eternity by a shell. Rifles, packs, haversacks,
bayonets, and men are all messed up in an intricate jumble, the
reserves lie down like rats in a trap, with their noses to the damp
earth, which always reminds me of the grave. For them there is not the
mad exhilaration of the bayonet charge, and the relief of striking
back at the aggressor. They lie in wait, helpless, unable to move
backward or forward, ears greedy for the latest rumours from the
active front, and hearts prone to feelings of depression and despair.

The man who is seized with cramp groans feebly, but no one can help
him. To rise is to court death, as well as to displace a dozen
grumbling mates who have inevitably become part of the human carpet
that covers the floor of the trench. A leg moved disturbs the whole
pattern; the sufferer can merely groan, suffer, and wait. When an (p. 076)
attack is on the communication trenches are persistently shelled by
the enemy with a view to stop the advance of reinforcements. Once our
company lay in a trench as reserves for fourteen hours, and during
that time upwards of two thousand shells were hurled in our direction,
our trench being half filled with rubble and clay. Two mates, one on
my right and one on my left, were wounded. I did not receive a
scratch, and Stoner slept for eight whole hours during the cannonade;
but this is another story.

Before coming out here I formed an imaginary picture of the trenches,
ours and the enemy's, running parallel from the Vosges in the South to
the sea in the North. But what a difference I find in the reality.
Where I write the trenches run in a strange, eccentric manner. At one
point the lines are barely eighty yards apart; the ground there is
under water in the wet season; the trench is built of sandbags; all
rifle fire is done from loop-holes, for to look over the para