Michael

yearningand of horror, but all his ordinary work-a-day self was occupied withthe immediate prospect of the stewpot. It was some sort of a ragout, heknew, and he lusted for it. Red wine of the country would be there,and cheese and new brown bread. . . . It surprised him to find howcompletely his bodily needs and the pleasure of their gratification hadpossession of him.

  They were under orders to go back to the trenches shortly after sunset,and when their meal was over there remained but an hour or two beforethey had to start. The warmth and glory of the day was already gone,and streamers of cloud were beginning to form over the open sky.All afternoon these thickened till a dull layer of grey had thicklyoverspread the heavens and below that arch of vapour that cut offthe sun the wind was blowing chilly. With that change in the weather,Michael's mood changed also, and the horror of the return to thetrenches began to come to the surface. He was not as yet aware of anyphysical fear of death or of wound, rather, the feeling was one of somemental and spiritual shrinking from the whole of this vast business ofmurder, where hundreds and thousands of men along the battle front thatstretched half-way across Europe, were employed, day and night, withouthaving any quarrel with each other, in the unsleeping vigilant work ofkilling. Most of them in all probability, were quite decent fellows,like those four who had whistled "Tipperary" together, and yet they werespending months of young, sweet life up to the knees in water, in fouland ill-smelling trenches in order to kill others whom they had neverseen except as specks on the sights of their rifles. Somewhere behindthat gruesome business, as he knew, there stood the Cause, calm andserene, like some great statue, which made this insensate murderingnecessary; but just for an hour to-day, as he waited till they had to beon the move again, he found himself unable to make real to his own mindthe existence of that cause, and could not see beyond the bloody andhideous things that resulted from it.

  Then, in this inaction of waiting, an attack of mere physical cowardiceseized him, and he found himself imagining the mutilation and torturethat perhaps awaited him personally in those deathly ditches. He triedto busy himself with the preparation of the few things that he wouldtake with him, he tried to encourage himself by remembering that in hisprevious experiences there he had not been conscious of any fear, bytelling himself that these were only the unreal anticipations that werealways ready to pounce on one even before such mildly alarming affairsas a visit to the dentist; but in spite of his efforts, he found hishands growing clammy and cold at the thoughts which beset his brain.What if there happened to him what had happened to another juniorofficer who was close to him at the moment, when a fragment of shellturned him from a big gay boy into a writhing bundle at the bottom ofthe trench! He had lived for a couple of hours like that, moaning andcrying out, "For God's sake kill me!" What if, more mercifully, he waskilled outright, so that he would lie there in peace till next nightthey removed his body, or perhaps had to bury him in the trench itself,with a dozen handfuls of soil cast over him! At that he suddenlyrealised how passionately he wanted to live, to escape from thisinfernal butchery, to be safe again, gloriously or ingloriously, itmattered not which, to be with Sylvia once more. He told himself thathe had been an utter fool ever to re-enter the army again like this.He could certainly have got some appointment as dispatch-carrier or hadhimself attached to the headquarters staff, or even have shuffled out ofit altogether. . . . But, above all, he wanted Sylvia; he wanted to beallowed to lead the ordinary human life, safely and securely, with thegirl he loved, and with the musical pursuits that were his passion.He had hated soldiering in times of peace; he found now that he wasterrified of it in times of war. He felt physically sick, as with coldhands and trembling knees he stood and waited, lighting cigarettes andthrowing them away, in front of the kitchen fire, where the stewpotwas already bubbling again for those lucky devils who would return hereto-night.

  The Major of his company was sitting in the window watching him, thoughMichael was unaware of it. Suddenly he got up, and came across to thefire, and put his hand on his shoulder.

  "Don't mind it, Comber," he said quietly. "We all get a touch of itsometimes. But you'll find it will pass all right. It's the waitingdoing nothing that does it."

  That touched Michael absolutely in the right place.

  "Thanks awfully, sir," he said.

  "Not a bit. But it's damned beastly while it lasts. You'll be all rightwhen we move. Don't forget to take your fur coat up if you've got one.We shall have a cold night."

  Just after sunset they set out, marching in the gathering dusk down theroad eastwards, where in a mile or two they would strike the huge rabbitwarren of trenches that joined the French line to the north and south.Once or twice they had to open out and go by the margin of the road tolet ambulances or commissariat wagon go by, but there was but littletraffic here, as the main lines of communication lay on other roads.High above them, scarcely visible in the dusk, an English aeroplanedroned back from its reconnaissance, and once there was the order givento scatter over the fields as a German Taube passed across them. Thiscaused much laughter and chaff among the men, and Michael heard onesay, "Dove they call it, do they? I'd like to make a pigeon-pie ofthem doves." Soon they scrambled back on to the road again, and theinterminable "Tipperary" was resumed, in whistle and song. Michaelremembered how Aunt Barbara had heard it at a music-hall, and had spokenof it as a new and catchy tune which you could carry away with you.Nowadays, it carried you away. It had become the audible soul of theBritish army.

  The trench which Michael's company were to occupy for the nextforty-eight hours was in the first firing-line, and to reach it they hadto pass in single file up a mile of communication trenches, fromwhich on all sides, like a vast rabbit warren, there opened out othergalleries and passages that led to different parts of this net-workof the lines. It ran not in a straight line but in short sections withangles intervening, so under no circumstances could any considerablelength of it be enfiladed, and was lit here and there by little oillamps placed in embrasures in one or other wall of it, or for somedistance at a time it was dark except for the vague twilight of thecloudy sky overhead. Then again, as they approached the firing-line, itwould suddenly become intensely bright, when from the English lines, orfrom those of the Germans which lay not more than two hundred yardsin front of them, a fireball or star-shell was sent up, that causedeverything it shone upon to leap into vivid illumination. Usually, whenthis happened, there came from one side or the other a volley of rifleshots, that sounded like the crack of stock-whips, and once or twice abullet passed over their heads with the buzz as of some vicious stinginginsect. Here and there, where the bottom lay in soft and clayey soil,they walked through mud that came half-way up to the knee, and each foothad to be lifted with an effort, and was set free with a smacking suck.Elsewhere, if the ground was gravelly, the rain which for two dayspreviously had been incessant, had drained off, and the going was easy.But whether the path lay over dry or soft places the air was sick withsome stale odour which the breeze that swept across the lines from thesouth-east could not carry away. There was a perpetual pervading reekthat flowed along from the entrance of trenches to right and left, thatreminded Michael of the smell of a football scrimmage on a wet day,laden with the odours of sweat and dripping clothes, and somethingdeadlier and more acrid. Sometimes they passed under a section coveredin with boards, over which the earth and clods of turf had beenreplaced, so that reconnoitring aeroplanes should not so easily spy itout, and here from dark excavations the smell hung overpoweringly. Nowand then the ground over which they passed yielded uneasily to the foot,where lay, only lightly covered over, some corpse which it had beenimpossible to remove, and from time to time they passed a huddled bundleof khaki not yet taken away. But except for the artillery duel thatday they had heard going on that morning, the last day or two had beenquiet, and the wounded had all been got out, and for the most part thedead also.

  After a long tramp in this communication trench they made a sharp turnto the right, and entered that which they were going to hold fo
rthe next forty-eight hours. Here they relieved the regiment thathad occupied it till now, who filed out as they came in. Along it atintervals were excavations dug out in the side, some propped up withboards and posts, others, where the ground was of sufficiently holdingcharacter, just scooped out. In front, towards the German lines ran aparapet of excavated earth, with occasional peep-holes bored in it, sothat the sentry going his rounds could look out and see if there wasany sign of movement from opposite without showing his head above theentrenchment. But even this was a matter of some risk, since the enemyhad located these peep-holes, and from time to time fired a shot from afixed rifle that came straight through them and buried its bullet in thehinder wall of the trench. Other spy-holes were therefore being made,but these were not yet finished, and for the present till they were dug,it was necessary to use