" However perfect
your organisation may be, congestion is bound to occur here and there;
and it is no little consolation to us to feel, as we surge and sway
in the darkness, that over there in the German lines a Saxon and
a Prussian private, irretrievably jammed together in a narrow
communication trench, are consigning one another to perdition in just
the same husky whisper as that employed by Private Mucklewame and his
"opposite number" in the regiment which has come to relieve him.
These "reliefs" take place every four or five nights. There was a
time, not so long ago, when a regiment was relieved, not when it was
weary, but when another regiment could be found to replace it. Our own
first battalion once remained in the trenches, unrelieved and only
securing its supplies with difficulty, for five weeks and three days.
During all that time they were subject to most pressing attentions on
the part of the Bosches, but they never lost a yard of trench. They
received word from Headquarters that to detach another regiment
for their relief would seriously weaken other and most important
dispositions. The Commander-in-Chief would therefore be greatly
obliged if they could hold on. So they held on.
At last they came out, and staggered back to billets. Their old
quarters, naturally, had long been appropriated by other troops, and
the officers had some difficulty in recovering their kits.
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