o had come back, after sleeping in
civilization with a blessed sense of safety, had a few minutes of queer
surprise that, after all, this business of war was something more real
than a fantastic nightmare, and then put on their moral cloaks against
the chill and grim reality, for another long spell of it. Very quickly
the familiarity of it all came back to them and became the normal
instead of the abnormal. They were back again to the settled state of
war, as boys go back to public schools after the wrench from home, and
find that the holiday is only the incident and school the more enduring
experience.

There were no new impressions, only the repetition of old impressions.
So I found when I heard the guns again and watched the shells bursting
about Ypres and over Kemmel Ridge and Messines church tower.

Two German airplanes passed overhead, and the hum of their engines was
loud in my ears as I lay in the grass. Our shrapnel burst about them,
but did not touch their wings. All around there was the slamming
of great guns, and I sat chewing a bit of straw by the side of a
shell-hole, thinking in the same old way of the utter senselessness of
all this noise and hate and sudden death which encircled me for miles.
No amount of meditation would screw a new meaning out of it all. It was
just the commonplace of life out here.

The routine of it went on. The officer who came back from home stepped
into his old place, and after the first greeting of, "Hullo, old man!
Had a good time?" found his old job waiting for him. So there was a new
brigadier-general? Quick promotion, by Jove!

Four men had got knocked out that morning at D4, and it was rotten bad
luck that the sergeant-major should have been among them. A real good
fellow. However, there's that court martial for this afternoon, and,
by the by, when is that timber coming up? Can't build the new dugout if
there's no decent wood to be got by stealing or otherwise. You heard how
the men got strafed in their billets the other day? Dirty work!

The man who had come back went into the trenches and had a word or two
with the N.C.O.'s. Then he went into his own dugout. The mice had been
getting at his papers. Oh yes, that's where he left his pipe! It was
lying under the trestle-table, just where he dropped it before going on
leave. The clay walls were a bit wet after the rains. He stood with a
chilled feeling in this little hole of his, staring at every familiar
thing in it.