The disconcerting thing in battle nowadays is that you may be fighting
for hours on end and never as much as see an enemy to grapple with. We
lay for ten hours with rifle fire dropping around us like raindrops in
a heavy shower. The roar of the guns was always there, like the thunder
that you hear in a big storm, and you could see one long line of little
white puffs of smoke away in the horizon every time the Germans fired.
Beyond that you couldn’t see anything, and it was only an odd sting in
the arm or leg or head from a bullet that made you realize you were in
battle: _Corporal of the Connaught Rangers_.
“A Horrible Trade-mark”
I have had two horses shot under me, so you can see my time hasn’t
come yet. Our men are wonderfully fit and fight like the very devil.
We have lost two of our young officers, and I am wearing a pair of
riding-breeches which belonged to one of them. I have been sharing a
pipe for a fortnight with one of my troopers. Things are going well
with us, and we are giving the Germans all they want, and a little more
besides. But there are such hordes of men that it’s a case of shooting
one line down when along comes another. They are cursed cowards, and
will not meet our cavalry in the open. Their shells are our worst
trouble; they don’t give you half a chance, for you can’t see them
coming, and they leave such a horrible trademark: _A Squadron-Major of
the Royal Horse Guards_.