I was
surprised by their cleanliness, by the good condition of their uniforms,
and by their good health and spirits. The life of the trenches had not
left its marks upon them, though mentally, perhaps, they had gone to
the uttermost limit of endurance. Only one man fired up savagely
when I said that they were lucky in being captured. "It is good to fight
for the Fatherland," he said. The others made no secret of their
satisfaction in being out of it all, and all of them described the attack
on Neuve Chapelle as a hellish thing which had caught them by
surprise and swept their ranks.
I went back to my billet in General Headquarters wishing that I had
seen something of that affair which had netted all these men. It had
been a "day out" for the British troops, and we had not yet heard of
the blunders or the blood that had spoilt its success. It was hard to
have seen nothing of it though so near the front. And then a promise
of seeing something of the operations on the morrow came as a
prospect for the next day. It would be good to see the real business
again and to thrill once more to the awful music of the guns.
Along the road next day it was obvious that "things" were going to
happen. As we passed through towns in our motor-cars there were
signs of increased activity.
Pages:
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561