n the drama; the psychology of the thing is too
absorbing. And it can only be realised when seen first hand.

Let us leave them there for the time--that battalion of the South
Loamshires. Sally--as the C.O. is generally known--has talked with the
Brigadier and the Brigade-Major. He knows that zero hour is 11.30
a.m.; he knows his objective--Suffolk Trench; he knows the strong point
at its northern end which the sappers are going to consolidate. The
Sapper has found his section subaltern and his section nursing coils of
barbed wire and shovels, and has been informed with much blasphemy that
the guide had lost his way, and the party had been wandering all night.
The machine-gun officer has delivered words of wisdom to various guns'
crews--both Lewis and otherwise--who came under his eagle eye at
intervals along the trench. Just the prosaic main road; the details
are tedious; the actual orders uninteresting. The attack would either
succeed or it would fail; the strong point would either be consolidated
or it would not. The orders--the details--are necessary adjuncts to
the operation; of no more interest than the arrangements for pulling up
the fire curtain. Only if the fire curtain sticks, the play is robbed
of much of its natural charm to the onlooker.

"Bring me some more breakfast. That walk gives one the devil of a
hunger." The Brigadier was back once more in his dug-out, while,
outside, the mist had lifted and the autumn sun shone down on a world
of mud.

The Brigade-Major was shaving; the Staff Captain--a non-starter in the
morning's walk--was demanding corrugated iron from the unmoved Sapper.

"I tell you this roof is a disgrace. Cascades of water pour through
into the soup at dinner. Why don't you do something?"

"What do you propose I should do, brave heart? Sit on the roof and
catch it?"

The subject was a complicated one, touching deep problems of supply and
demand, to say nothing of carrying parties; so let us leave them to
their warfare.

The signal officer was looking wise over something that boomed and
buzzed alternately; the machine-gun officer may, or may not, have been
enjoying another toothful.

In short, the supers, the stage-managers had departed. The last
directions had been given, and the play was due to start in an hour and
a quarter. All that could be done for its success had been done by
those who were behind; now it was up to the men who sat and sprawled in
the mud-hole