ing apples from an orchard when a farmer appears. Must not get caught. 
The plane is covering their trenches. I can make more progress. 
As I pass the dead man who was beside me, I study his features fascinat- 
ed. His eyes are shut and his features bloodless and drawn. I do not re- 
cognise him, though I feel I should. Then I remember. It is the boy who 
was so excited about his first attack. 
Slowly, slowly. I make progress. Am near the parapet. Without 
willing it, without conscious volition, I get to my feet and rush over. 
As I spring, there is an agonised cry beneath me. A wounded man is 
lying below, surrounded by his comrades trying to help him. His cries 
wring the heart. They gently chide him, “Now, Dutch. Now Dutch”. 
They are cutting away the leg of his trousers. I prepare myself. A shat- 
tered ankle is revealed. An explosive bullet. A repulsive tangle of flesh, 
sinews and bone. I feel quite unmoved. Strange how quickly I grow 
callous. 
Returning up the trench, I hear my name called. Another wounded 
man lying on his side. His arm is bandaged. I go up to him. He cannot 
breathe he says. Can I turn him on his back? I call the First Aid man. 
We stoop down beside him, and I give him a drink from my bottle. 
I hold up his wounded arm so that he can breathe better, but he says 
this is no use. He has a second wound in the shoulder. His coat is cut 
away and a gaping wound can be seen in the top of his shoulder. It is 
dressed. Soon, he too is carried away. He is strangely resigned and si- 
lent. The hands of the ambulance man are red with blood. 
In the trench the men are sitting around dispiritedly. Over the 
parapet can be seen the dead, lying quite still in little groups. The light 
is failing. 

*

After the rain of the night, the sun broke through the clouds, and 
slightly warmed the bitter cold of the morning. During the night, our 
dead have been brought in. They are lying opposite, at the back of the 
trenches, in queer unnatural attitudes. One is lying with his face up, 
his fist held up in a grotesque Red Front Salute. Queer waxen features. 
Broken dolls. A boy is saying brokenly, “They killed my buddy; they 
killed my buddy.”  
Graves are being dug. Slowly, sadly, we place the poor torn bodies 
in them. 

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