Bullets are spitting up dust everywhere. 
The man on my left cries “Oh!” There is agony in his voice. His 
voice quickly fades to a moan and dies out. I call back “Is that man 
wounded ?” The man on my right is emphatic, “He’s dead.” The surprise 
is almost physical. I drop my head once more. This is real. This is no 
play acting. At my elbow a spurt of dust goes up. I jerk my arm close. 
The man on my right groans. “What’s the matter? are you hit?” 
He replies “Oh, they got me pal, they got me!” I smother a desire to 
laugh. His reply is exactly in the vein of the boys when they are skitting 
the tuppenny war thriller. “Oh, pal, they got me!” I ask him where 
he has been hit. “Oh, my elbow, my elbow.” I feel he is not seriously 
hurt. 
Over to my left I can see smoke rising from the body of a man 
lying in the open. I watch with horror. Incendiary bullets. Now flame 
bursts from him. The breeze wafts over the smell of burning flesh. 
Everywhere are lying men. Men with a curious ruffled look, like a dead 
bird. They are still. Their stillness contrasts strangely with the noise and 
turmoil in the air around them. They seem unmindful of it all. 
Little bursts of dust spit up around the tree behind which I cover. 
I press my body into the earth. With my head pressed down, the tick 
of the watch on my wrist gives a strange comfort. So close, it sounds 
like the tick of the alarm clock in the bedroom at home. The house 
where I spent so many happy holidays. The present fades away. The 
memory grows strong. The cool whiteness of the walls, with the framed 
photograph of the five generations. The latticed windows. Old Johnnie. 
The chest in the corner filled with worthless books and lumber. The 
beam across the fireplace where I always banged my head. The cool 
Cotswold breezes. The sunny afternoons. I dream happily. 
I am aroused by the silence. A plane is passing over the Fascist lines 
and the machine guns are silent. Our own men in the trench behind 
are silent, too, watching the plane. The wounded man has gone from 
the side of me. A man comes slowly past, working his way back with 
his belly pressed close to the ground. He shouts something about “Re- 
treat”. 
Fifteen yards to the right, I can see Mac creeping slowly back. 
Behind him he pulls a wounded comrade. I watch detachedly. Poor 
Mac! he does not look like a hero. There is fear written all over his face. 
He persists, gradually approaches the parapet. He is over! His arm is 
groping over the sandbags for the feet of the wounded man. He has 
him! He pulls him over. 
I begin to crawl back. With slow carefill movements, I move back- 
wards, this is not fear I feel. Rather a feeling of guilt like a boy steal-

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