"An air pillow," I answered.
"'Ow much were yer rushed for it?"
"Somebody sent it to me," I said.
"To rest yer weary 'ead on?"
I nodded.
"I like a fresh piller every night," said Bill.
"A fresh what?"
"A fresh brick."
"How do you like these trenches?" I asked after a short silence.
"Not much," he answered. "They're all blurry flies and chalk." He
gazed ruefully at the white sandbags and an army ration of cheese
rolled up in a paper on which blow-flies were congregating. Chalk was
all over the place, the dug-outs were dug out of chalk, the sandbags
were filled with chalk, every bullet, bomb and shell whirled showers
of fine powdery chalk into the air, chalk frittered away from the
parapets fell down into our mess-tins as we drank our tea, the
rain-wet chalk melted to milk and whitened the barrels and actions (p. 245)
of our rifles where they stood on the banquette, bayonets up to the sky.
Looking northward when one dared to raise his head over the parapet
for a moment, could be seen white lines of chalk winding across a sea
of green meadows splashed with daisies and scarlet poppies.
Butterflies flitted from flower to flower and sometimes found their
way into our trench where they rested for a moment on the chalk bags,
only to rise again and vanish over the fringes of green that verged
the limits of our world. Three miles away rising lonely over the
beaten zone of emerald stood a red brick village, conspicuous by the
spire of its church and an impudent chimney, with part of its side
blown away, that stood stiff in the air.
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