Next thing I knew we were scrambling on to the second line. It was in
the wire of the second line that I got my knockout; this shoulder and
some splinters in my head. Yes; bomb. I was out of business, then; but
as the light grew I could see my chaps having the time of their lives
inside that second line. One of 'em hauled me in after a bit, and I
got a drink of beer in a big Boche dugout down two separate flights
of steps. My hat! That beer was good, though it was German. But, look
here, I'm in No. 5 train, that that chap's calling. I must get ashore.
Just want to tell you about that dugout of ----'s in our own line, you
know. It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and we'd got the Bazentin Wood
all right then, when my orderly, who never got a scratch, was helping
me back, making for our dressing station. We crawled into what had been
a trench, and while we were taking a breather I sort of looked around,
and made out a bit here and a bend there. Begad, it was the trench we
started from.
Seems nothing, but you've no idea how odd it was to me; like dropping
into a bit of England after about a century and a half in--in some
special kind of hell, you know. Seemed so devilish odd that any mortal
thing should be the same anywhere after that day. Not that it was the
same, really. My rum case was in splinters, sticking up out of the
porridge, and I found my map case there, torn off my belt as we got
over at 3:25. "Won't be much left of that dugout," I thought, and I got
my orderly to help me along to see. Couldn't find the blessed thing,
anyhow. Went backward and forward three or four times. Then I spotted
the head of a long trench stick that ---- had carried, sticking out
through soft earth at the back of the trench. The orderly worked that
stick about a little, and the earth fell away. It was just loose,
dry stuff blown in off the front part of the roof of the dugout, and
blocking the little entrance. Came away at a touch, almost, and there
was the little hole you got in by. I worried through, somehow. I
was really curious to see. If you'll believe me, the inside of that
dugout--it looked like a drawing room to me, after the outside, you
know--it was just exactly the same as when we'd left it the night
before. There was the fine stove we made the café-au-lait on, with a
half-empty box of matches balanced on the side of it, and the last
empty tin of the coffee stuff we'd used, with the broken-handled spoon
standing up in it, just as I'd left it; and ----'s notebook lying
open and face down on an air pillow in his bunk--most extraordinarily
homey. There I was looking at his notebook, and his hold-all, and poor
---- dead. Yes, I'd seen his body. And the rats, too; the rats were
cavorting around on the felt of the roof, happy as sandboys. They
didn't know anything about the Push, I suppose. By the way, we found
only dead rats in the Boche trenches. They say it was our gas. I don't
know; but there were thousands of dead rats there, and millions of live
fleas. Very live they were. I must get. Cheero.