The stench gathers itself in the early morning, in that chill (p. 296)
hour which precedes the dawn one can almost see the smell ooze from
the earth of the firing line. It is penetrating, sharp, and well-nigh
tangible, the odour of herbs, flowers, and the dawn mixed with the
stench of rotting meat and of the dead. You can taste it as it enters
your mouth and nostrils, it comes in slowly, you feel it crawl up your
nose and sink with a nauseous slowness down the back of the throat
through the windpipe and into the stomach.
I leant my arms on the sandbags and looked across the field; I fancied
I could see men moving in the darkness, but when the star-shells went
up there was no sign of movement out by the web of barbed-wire
entanglements. The new sap with its bags of earth stretched out chalky
white towards the enemy; the sap was not more than three feet deep
yet, it afforded very little protection from fire. Suddenly rising
eerie from the space between the lines, I heard a cry. A harrowing
"Oh!" wrung from a tortured soul, then a second "Oh!" ear-splitting,
deafening. Something must have happened, one of the working party was
hit I knew. A third "Oh!" followed, weak it was and infantile, then
intense silence wrapped up everything as in a cloak. But only for (p. 297)
a moment. The enemy must have heard the cry for a dozen star-shells
shot towards us and frittered away in sparks by our barbed-wire
entanglements. There followed a second of darkness and then an
explosion right over the sap.
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