C. I see
myself counting ration bags while the battalion is charging with
fixed bayonets; and in the evening sending up parties of weary laden
carriers over shell-swept areas, while I myself stay behind at
the Dump. Damn! Damn!! Damn!!! Then I shall receive ironical
congratulations on my "cushy" job.

* * * * *

Have just seen the battalion off. I don't start for another five
hours. I loathe war. It is futile, idiotic. I would gladly be out
of the Army to-morrow. Glory is a painted idol, honour a phantasy,
religion a delusion. We wallow in blood and torture to please
a creature of our imagination. We are no better than South Sea
Islanders.

* * * * *

Just here the attack was a failure. When I got to the Dump I found the
battalion still there. By an irony of fate I was the only officer of
my company to set foot in the German lines. After a day of idleness
and depression I had to detail a party to carry bombs at top speed to
some relics of the leading battalions, who were still clinging to the
extremest corner of the enemy's front line some distance to our left.
Being fed up with inaction, I took the party myself. It was a long
way. The trenches were choked with wounded and stragglers and troops
who had never been ordered to advance. In many places they were broken
down by shell-fire, in others they were waist-deep in water. By dint
of much shouting and shoving and cursing I managed to get through
with about ten of my men, but had to leave the others to follow with a
sergeant.

At last we sighted our objective, a cluster of chalk mounds surrounded
with broken wire, shell craters, corpses, wreathed in smoke, dotted
with men. I think we all ran across the ground between our front
line and our objective, though it must have been more or less dead
ground. Anyhow, only one man was hit. When we got close the scene
was absurdly like a conventional battle picture--the sort of picture
that one never believes in for a minute. There was a wild mixture of
regiments--Jocks, Irishmen, Territorials, etc., etc. There was no
proper trench left. There were rifles, a machine gun, a Lewis rifle,
and bombs all going at the same time. There were wounded men sitting
in a kind of helpless stupor; there were wounded trying to drag
themselves back to our own lines; there were the dead of whom no one
took any notice. But the prevailing note was one of utter weariness
coupled wit