ad when they go too high. The shells which burst on the other
side of the parapet shake the ground with a dull thud and crash. There
are two minutes to wait before going over. Then is the time when a man
feels a sinking sensation in his stomach; when his hands tremble ever
so slightly, and when he offers up a pathetic little prayer to God
that if he's a bit of a sportsman he may be spared from death, should
his getting through not violate the divine and fatalistic plans. He
has that unpleasant lack of knowledge of what comes beyond. For after
all, with the most intense belief in the world, it is hard to
reconcile the comforting feeling of what one knows with that terrible
dread of the unknown.

A man has no great and glorious ideas that nothing matters because he
is ready to die for his country. He is, of course, ready to die for
her. But he does not think about it. He lights a cigarette and tries
to be nonchalant, for he knows that his men are watching him, and it
is his duty to keep up a front for their sake. Probably, at the same
time, they are keeping up a front for him. Then the Sergeant Major
comes along, cool and smiling, as if he were out for a stroll at home.
Suddenly he is an immense comfort. One forgets that sinking feeling in
the stomach and thinks, "How easy and jolly he is! What a splendid
fellow!" Immediately, one begins unconsciously to imitate him. Then
another thinks the same thing about one, and begins to imitate too. So
it passes on, down the line. But there is nothing heroic or exalting
in going over the top.

This, then, was our possible second reason for preferring to attack
inside bullet-proof steel; not that death is less likely in a tank,
but there seems to be a more sporting chance with a shell than with a
bullet. The enemy infantryman looks along his sight and he has you for
a certainty, but the gunner cannot be so accurate and twenty yards
may mean a world of difference. Above all, the new monster had our
imaginations in thrall. Here were novelty and wonderful developments.

In the end of 1916, therefore, a certain number of officers and men
received their orders to join the H.B.M.G.C., and proceeded
sorrowfully and joyfully away from the trenches. Sorrowfully, because
it is a poor thing to leave your men and your friends in danger, and
get out of it yourself into something new and fresh; joyfully, because
one is, after all, but human.

About thirty miles behind the line some villages we