i6 
LAND & WATER 
November ib, 191b 
doll, and the leg of a dead German projecting from the 
wall of a commmiication-trcnch. Truly our yuns grind 
exceeding small. 
We entered the wood, and as we entered it, we seemed 
to leave all life behind us. Whether it was one of those 
tricks of acoustics by which the configuration of the 
ground or tlie relative density of the almosplure creates 
a " pocket " 1 know not, but once in that wood \<'e 
seemed as isolated from all auditory intercourse as a 
signaller whose wires arc suddenly cut. And we were 
quite alone. \\e knew the guns were speaking, for 
behind us we could see orange, flashes of flame and in 
front of us brooding black clouds. But in the wood 
itself there was, or seemed to be, a deep and sepulchral 
silence. It was — or had been— a wood of fir and beech. 
I recognised the trees by their trunks as an anatomist 
might recognise some extinct mammal by a bone, for these 
were mere skeletons of trees to which not one leaf adhered. 
Some were cut clean at thc'^base as though by a wood- 
man's saw ; others were rudely pollarded at the top ; 
many were shivered as by a blast of lightning. It was 
October, and in the valleys below the beeches and poplars 
were still in full leaf ; yet in this stricken wood not a leaf 
nor a blade of grass nor even a })atch of moss appeared. 
Our progress was slow and painful, for the ground \yas 
scooped and moulded into circular pits of a surprising 
sv-nimetry, so close that one could leap from one to the 
other, and so deep that they reached to our slioulders as 
we stumbled into them. They were shell-holes, and from 
each of them as we slid into it there arose an angry hum, 
swelling into a diapason as clouds of large black flies 
rose in agitation. 
An Immense Litter 
We groped our way amid an immense Utter of broken 
rifles, bayonets, kit, pickaxes, spades, gas-masks, field- 
dressings. Lewis gun cylinders, Mills bombs, and cotton- 
wool, with here and there a packet of cigarettes. A 
peculiar sic-kly smell suffused the wood. 
" Fifty thousand dead here, I should think," said the 
Colonel meditatively as wc dropped with a splash into a 
cHsused communication trench. " Mostly Germans, of 
course. Don't lose sight of me whatever you do or we 
may never hnd each other again." And we wormed our 
way between the sticky walls of the trencli, brushing 
against ghastly objects and obscene which protruded 
like the roots of a tree. 
The soft porous mud clung to our boots like treacle, 
and we were glad when the trench debouched upon the 
open ground. Our way to Brigade H.Q. lay across a 
slope covered with strands of rusty field telephones and 
pitted with shell-holes. As we came in view of a low 
ridge, six feet high, khaki-clad figures gradually detached 
themselves from the brown background and the holes of 
the Brigade dug-out appeared. 
At about a hundred yards distance from our objective 
I was surprised to see a khaki-clad figure crouching in 
one of the shell-holes with his rifle in his left hand and 
gazing fixedly towards the ridge. One does not usually 
do outpost-duty in the rear. As we came up to him I 
turned to ask him what he was doing there, but as I 
opened my lips to speak I saw that his body was 
strangely rigid, the hair under his helmet thick with flies 
and his ears black as ebony. He was dead. 
The Brigadier greeted us at the entrance of the dug-out, 
where sat a sajiix-r under a tarpaulin with the receiver 
of a telephone at his ear and a kitten between his feet. 
" You want to get on to Battalion H.Q. ? Right, you'll 
want a guide. Here, can you read a map ? " he added, 
as he turned to a mun wearing the blue and v\ hite brassard 
of the signallers. 
" No, zur, but I knows the way." 
I knew that accent, and I turnecl to look at the speaker. 
He was a well-built youth, with a broad homely face, 
iioncst grey eyes, straw-coloured hair, and a large good- 
natured moutli. He carried as his only weapon a long 
staff about live feet in length. You can— you could — 
see many such as he keeping sheep in Pewsey Vale. 
We topped the ridge, the signaller doing il 'pole-jump 
and stopping to give mc a hand A sequence of M.E. 
shells were falling again and again in a cloud pf e;arth and 
black smoke upon a corner of a road about fpiir lunldred 
i'ards to our left, while at something the saiile distance 
on our right 3.() " univcrsals " were bursting into low 
clouds of snow-white fleece. The ground we were 
crossing was a perfect snare of wire, and as I studied my 
steps I noticed that the clay in the shell-holes we skirtea 
was black and the clods newly turned. It was my first 
experience of shell-lire, and 1 was pondering its signifi- 
cance when the Colonel called over his shoulder, " Watch 
me, old man, and do as I do." 
" There's a girt big church over there, zur," our guide re- 
marked to ine conlidentially, as he pointed with lijs staff 
at a spire peeping out between the trees on a wooded 
ridge about four miles to our left. " It be a mortal 
big " 
There was a sibilant hiss in the air ahead of us. The 
Colonel had disappeared. The next moment I saw liim 
lying flat on the earth a few yards in front of me and pull- 
ing his helmet, which hitherto he had carried in his hand 
like a bucket, over the nape of his neck. 1 dropped, and 
as I heard a dull thud and the patter of falling stuff 
all around me I was disagreeably conscious of having the 
largest spine of all vertebrate beings. " It be as big as 
Zaulsbury Cathedral, zur, I do think." ... I looked 
uj) from under my shrapnel helmet as a tortoise looks out 
from under its shell and saw the signaller looking down 
at me. He had remained upright and had never moved. 
I saw the Colonclrising tohisfeet. The Colonel now broke 
into a quick trot. He has a cool head — incidentally 
he's a V.C— and never runs without a purpose. What 
is more he knows the whole octave of shell-music and the 
compass of all the diabolical instruments that produce its 
weird harmonies. Wherefore, when he ran I ran. The 
air overhead was now producing the strangest orchestral 
effects, in which were blended sounds like the crack of 
gigantic whips, the pulsations of enormous wings, the 
screams of frightened birds, and, more often than not, 
a reptilian hiss. 
" They do say as Zaulsbury spire be the girtest spire in 
Hengland," continued the signaller imperturbably, 
" parson told I so . . . It be all right, zur," he added 
after a pause, as he waited for me to ri.se again, my atten- 
tion having been diverted by the Colonel again prostrat- 
ing himself like a Moslem in prayer. The Colonel's 
posture was sacred, but his language was profane. " He 
hev only caught his foot in a wire, zur," my guide added 
without the suspicion of a smile, as I rose to my feet. 
" Churches do seem to come natural like to me. My 
feyther he be sexton you see, zur. He be a hancient man 
and zays as he hev a buried the whole parish in his tiiiic. 
The only thing that do worrit 'un is that he won't be 
able to bury hisself when' a turns up his toes. He can't 
a-bear the idea of being buried by zumm'un else. It do 
make 'n quite low-sperrited at times. But he be getting 
childish. He do worry about my not getting Christian 
burial out here. I think he be more worried about my 
not getting buried than about my not getting killed. 
Not that he ain't a very good veyther to me," he added 
apologetically, " but you see, zur, it be his profession. 
But I tell 'un 'what mun be mun be, feyther "... 
And anyhow I ain't dead yet," he added cheerfully as a 
shell hissed overhead. " This be the communication 
trench. It be 'all we 'ave at present." 
It was barely 18 inches wide, it was not more than 
five feet deep, and it was not traversed. It had been 
hurriedly thrown up, for we had only just captured the 
ground. As I looked over it to my left I saw four figures 
marching in a direction parallel with our own, but towards 
our rear. They were marching over the open ground and 
inarching as steadily as if they were doing stretcher drill 
in a training camp. As they drew nearer I saw- that they 
bore a stretcher high upon their shoulders, the feet of the 
patient were bare except for the white bandages, the loose 
ends of which fluttered in the air. 
" That poor chap's got it bad," said the signaller as he 
drew my attention to the red label. " And 'ere be the 
walking cases," he added as men in twos and threes with 
white lab(>ls depending from their buttonholes began to 
squeeze past us, some of them very pale, and one, whose 
lips were blue with cyanosis and his face livid, muttering 
witii trance-like rei)etitions in a kind of soUloquy, " Been 
buried three times this morning — three times I been 
buried — it's me chest." 
" That fellow looks pretty bad," I remarked over my 
shoulder to the signaller. "l got no answer. I looked 
back. The signaller had dropped bcjliind : he was 
