The Great Push

tions f

e us all a clean sh

ockets, and one felt that if her tightly strained eyelids relaxed their grip for a moment the eyes would roll out on the floor. Her upper teeth protruded, and the point of her receding chin had lost itself somewhere in the hollow of her neck. Her pendant breasts hung flabbily, and it was a miracle how her youngest child, Gustave, a tot of seven months, could find any[40] sustenance there. She had three children, who prattled all through the peaceful hours of th

we knew that morning would find our muddy clothes warm and dry. The woman would count our number as we entered. One less than when we left! The missing man wore spectacles. She remembered him and all his mannerisms. He used to nurse her little baby boy, Gus

ien,

floor, lit a candle and undressed. All wet clothes were flung downstairs, where the woman would hang them up to dry. Everything was the same here as when we le

men, th

rick field

ans took

e Gentlemen

this wall, but in latrine language and Rabelaisian hum

good money, but

are sertin to rec

sin and a so

a couplet writte

re if the G

an extra t

4

wl their names on every white surface they see, I often wonder? One of my mates, who wondered as I did, fina

mbition mu

his name up

e does des

mucky bo

in the street are blown down, and every ruin has its tragedy. The natives are gradually getting thinned out by the weapons of war. The people refuse to quit their homes. This woman has a sister in Nouex-les

our shirts could tell stories of adventure that would eclipse tales of romance[43] as the

The washerwoman called at my billet and brought back the cardigan jacket, also a franc piece which she had found in the pocket. On the day following the woman was washing her baby at a pump in the street and a shell blew her head off. Pieces

men and women died natural deaths, children were born, females chattered at the street pumps and circulated rumours about their neighbours.... All this when wagons of shells passed through the streets all day and big guns travelled up nearer the lines every night. Never had Les Brebis known such traffic. Horses, limbers and guns, guns, limbers and horses going and coming from dawn to dusk and from dusk to dawn. From their emplacements in every spinney and every hollow in t

we worked in our little ways, dug advanced trenches under shell fire in a field where four thousand dead Frenchmen[45] were wasting to clay. These men had charged last winter and fell to max

ells were bursting and the smoke of the explosions curled above the red roofs of the houses. The enemy was bombarding the road ahead, and the wounded were being carried back to the dressing stations. We met many stretchers on the road. The church of Bully-Grenay had been hit, and a barn near the church had been blo

stirred in the poplars which lined the long, straight road. Now and again, when a star-shell flamed over the firing line, we caught a glimpse of Bully-Grenay, huddled and help

s, they were deep in sweet confidences which only the young can exchange. The maiden was "Mercédès." The sight was good; it was as a tonic to us. A load seemed to have been lifted off our shoulders, and we experienced a light and airy sensation o

concussion shells played havoc with masonry, and shrapnel shells flung their deadly freight on roads where the transports hurried, and where the long-eared mules sweated in the traces of the limbers of war. We spoke of the big work ahead, but up till the evening prece

jective was the second German trench which lay[48] just in front of Loos village and a mile away from our own first line trench. Every movement of the operations had been carefully planned, and nothing was left to chance. Never had we as many guns as now, and these guns had been bombarding the enemy's positions almost incessantly for ten days. Smoke bombs would be used. The thick fumes resulting from their explosion between the lines would cover our advance. At five o'clock all our

way across. A party would be detailed out to attend to the wounded who fell near the assembly trenches.... The attack had be

4

my mate, Bill Teake. "I think a bot

"I see Dudley Pryor is off to the café al

I said with a laugh. "Yo

smile fluttered

n' to no rule," he repl

of francs," I said. "W

e answered. "Maybe, we'l

matter a dam

will be an easy job

understood thi

gne?" I

mpagne," said Bil