was smoking--some calmly, some with short, nervous puffs. It
was interesting to watch the faces of the men. One could read, almost to
a certainty, what was going on in their minds. Some of them were thinking
of the terrible events so near at hand. They were imagining the horrors
of the attack in detail. Others were unconcernedly intent upon adjusting
straps of their equipment, or in rubbing their clips of ammunition with
an oily rag. Several men were singing to a mouth-organ accompaniment. I
saw their lips moving, but not a sound reached me above the din of the
guns, although I was standing only a few yards distant. It was like an
absurd pantomime.

As I watched them, the sense of the unreality of the whole thing swept
over me more strongly than ever before. "This can't be true," I thought;
"I have never been a soldier. There isn't any European war." I had the
curious feeling that my body and brain were functioning quite apart from
me. I was only a slow-witted, incredulous spectator looking on with a
stupid animal wonder. I have learned that this feeling is quite common
among men in the trenches. A part of the mind works normally, and another
part, which seems to be one's essential self, refuses to assimilate and
classify experiences so unusual, so different from anything in the
catalogue of memory.

For two hours and a half the roar of guns continued. Then it stopped as
suddenly as it had begun. An officer near me shouted, "Now, men! Follow
me!" and clambered over the parapet. There was no hesitation. In a moment
the trench was empty save for the bomb-carrying parties and an artillery
observation officer, who was jumping up and down on the firing-bench,
shouting--

"Go it, the Norfolks! _Go it, the Norfolks!_ My God! Isn't it fine!
Isn't it splendid!"

There you have the British officer true to type. He is a sportsman: next
to taking part in a fight he loves to see one--and he says "isn't" not
"ain't," even under stress of the greatest excitement.

The German artillery, which had been reserving fire, now poured forth a
deluge of shrapnel. The sound of rifle fire was scattered and ragged at
first, but it increased steadily in volume. Then came the "boiler-factory
chorus," the sharp rattle of dozens of machine guns. The bullets were
flying over our heads like swarms of angry wasps. A ration-box board
which I held above the parapet was struck almost immediately. Fortunately
for the artillery officer, a disrespectful