August 1916You get used to raiding, Harry thought; some blokes even liked it. It was better than crouching in a rotten wet trench all day, and then at night skulking back to the support and the reserve trench, and back to billets, and a few days’ rest, and then forward again. Round and round, week in and week out, and no one could say what was more dangerous, moving forward, moving back, or just sitting still. At least when you were raiding, you knew you had f**k all’s chance of getting through, and knowing your chances was better than not knowing them. But today he’d been buried twice, and that was too much. It wasn’t right.
There was watery mud up to his chin. The trick was not to swallow any. He stretched his right leg beneath him. The mud stirred like cold lumpy soup and he found some
