"Stand-to!" (p. 095)
I rose to my feet, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and promptly hit my
head a resounding blow on the roof. The impact caused me to take a
pace forward, and my boot rested on Stoner's face.
"Get out of it, you clumsy Irish beggar!" he yelled, jumping up and
stumbling over Mervin, who was presently afoot and marching over
another prostrate form.
"Stand-to! Stand-to!"
We shuffled out into the open, and took up our posts on the banquette,
each in fighting array, equipped with 150 rounds of ball cartridge and
entrenching tool handle on hip. In the trenches we always sleep in our
equipment, by day we wear our bayonets in scabbard, at night the
bayonets are always fixed.
"Where's Z----?" asked Stoner, as we stood to our rifles.
"In the dug-out," I told him, "he's asleep."
"'E is, is 'e?" yelled Bill, rushing to the door. "Come out of it
lazybones," he called. "Show a leg at once, and grease to your gun.
The Germans are on the top of us. Come out and get shot in the open."
Z---- stumbled from his bed and blinked at us as he came out. (p. 096)
"Is it true, Bill, are they 'ere?" he asked.
"If they were 'ere you'd be a lot of good, you would," said Bill. "Get
on with the work."
In the dusk and dawning we stand-to in the trenches ready to receive
the enemy if he attempt to charge. Probably on the other side he waits
for our coming.
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