we stood a total of hours hopelessly jammed in the suffocating trench, with other troops trying to get down. A man stood in those crushes, unable to sit down, unable to lean comfortably against the wall because of his pack, unable even to get his hand to his water-bottle and quench his intolerable thirst, unable almost to breathe for the hot smell of herded humanity. Only a thin ribbon of stars overhead, remotely roofing his prison, reminded him that indeed he was still in the living world and not pursuing some hideous nightmare. At long last some one would take charge of the situation, and by sheer muscular fighting for space the two masses would be extricated. Then one moved on again. And now each man has become a mere lifeless automaton. Every few yards there is a wire hanging across the trench at the height of a man's eyes, and he runs blindly into it, or it catches in the piling-swivel of his rifle; painfully he removes it, or in a fit of fury tears the wire away with him. Or there is a man lying in a corner with a wounded leg crying out to each passer-by not to tread on him, or a stretcher party slowly struggling against the tide. Mechanically each man grapples with these obstacles, mechanically repeats the ceaseless messages that are passed up and down, and the warning 'Wire,' 'Stretcher party', 'Step up,' to those behind, and stumbles on. He is only conscious of the dead weight of his load, and the braces of his pack biting into his shoulders, of his thirst, and the sweat of his body, and the longing to lie down and sleep. When we halt men fall into a doze as they stand, and curse pitifully when they are urged on from behind.

We reach the inhabited part of the line, and the obstacles become more frequent, for there are traverses every ten yards and men sleeping on the floor, and a litter of rifles, water-cans, and scattered equipment. For ever we wind round the endless traverses, and squeeze past the endless host we are relieving; and sometimes the parapet is low or broken or thin, or there is a dangerous gap, and we are told to keep our heads down, and dully pass back the message so that it reaches men meaninglessly when they have passed the danger-point, or are still far from it. All the time there is a wild rattle of rapid fire from the Turks, and bullets hammer irritably on the parapet, or fly singing overhead. When a man reached his destined part of the trench that night there were still long minutes of exasperation before him; for we were inexperienced troops, and first of all the men crowded in too far together, and must turn about, and press back so as to cover the whole ground to be garrisoned; then they would flock like sad sheep too far in the opposite direction. This was the subaltern's 

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