think. The trouble may begin a day or two in advance, when he is first
told of the attack which is likely to mean death to himself and so
many of his chums. This part is comparatively easy. It is fairly easy
to be philosophic if one has plenty of time. One indulges in regrets
about the home one may never see again. One is rather sorry for
oneself; but such self-pity is not wholly unpleasant. One feels mildly
heroic, which is not wholly disagreeable either. Very few men are
afraid of death in the abstract. Very few men believe in hell, or are
tortured by their consciences. They are doubtful about after-death,
hesitating between a belief in eternal oblivion and a belief in a new
life under the same management as the present; and neither prospect
fills them with terror. If only one's "people" would be sensible, one
would not mind.

But as the hour approaches when the attack is due to be launched the
strain becomes more tense. The men are probably cooped up in a very
small space. Movement is very restricted. Matches must not be struck.
Voices must be hushed to a whisper. Shells bursting and machine guns
rattling bring home the grim reality of the affair. It is then more
than at any other time in an attack that a man has to "face the
spectres of the mind," and lay them if he can. Few men care for those
hours of waiting.

Of all the hours of dismay that come to a soldier there are really few
more trying to the nerves than when he is sitting in a trench under
heavy fire from high-explosive shells or bombs from trench mortars.
You can watch these bombs lobbed up into the air. You see them slowly
wobble down to earth, there to explode with a terrific detonation
that sets every nerve in your body a-jangling. You can do nothing. You
cannot retaliate in any way. You simply have to sit tight and hope