Behind the firing trench even greater activity prevails. Damage
done to the parapet by shell fire is being repaired. Positions and
emplacements are being constantly improved, communication trenches
widened or made more secure. Down these trenches fatigue parties are
filing, to draw rations and water and ammunition from the limbered
waggons which are waiting in the shadow of a wood, perhaps a mile
back. It is at this hour, too, that the wounded, who have been lying
pathetically cheerful and patient in the dressing-station in the
reserve trench, are smuggled to the Field Ambulance--probably to find
themselves safe in a London hospital within twenty-four hours. Lastly,
under the kindly cloak of night, we bury our dead.
Meanwhile, within various stifling dug-outs, in the firing trench or
support-trench, overheated company commanders are dictating reports
or filling in returns. (Even now the Round Game Department is not
entirely shaken off.) There is the casualty return, and a report on
the doings of the enemy, and another report of one's own doings, and a
report on the direction of the wind, and so on. Then there are various
indents to fill up--scrawled on a wobbly writing-block with a blunt
indelible pencil by the light of a guttering candle--for ammunition,
and sandbags, and revetting material.
All this literature has to be sent to Battalion Headquarters by
one A.
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