was butcher's work. We just rained shells on the Germans until we were
deaf and choking. I don't think a gun on their position could have sold
for old iron after we had finished, and the German gunners would be just
odd pieces of clothing and bits of accouterment. It seems 'swanky' to
say so, but once you get over the first shock you go on chewing biscuits
and tobacco when the shells are bursting all round. You don't seem to
mind it any more than smoking in a hailstorm."

Smoking is the great consolation of the soldiers. They smoke whenever
they can, and the soothing cigarette is their best friend in the
trenches. "We can go through anything so long as we have tobacco," is a
passage from a soldier's letter; and this is the burden of nearly all
the messages from the front. "The fight was pretty hot while it lasted,
but we were all as cool as Liffy water, and smoked cigarettes while the
shells shrieked blue murder over our heads," is an Irishman's account of
the effect of the big German guns.

The noise of battle--especially the roar of artillery--is described in
several letters. "It is like standing in a railway station with heavy
expresses constantly tearing through," is an officer's impression of it.
A wounded Gordon Highlander dismisses it as no more terrible than a bad
thunderstorm: "You get the same din and the big flashes of light in
front of you, and now and then the chance of being knocked over by a
bullet or piece of shell, just as you might be struck by lightning."
That is the real philosophy of the soldier. "After all, we are may-be as
safe here as you are in Piccadilly," says another; and when men have
come unhurt out of infinite danger they grow sublimely fatalistic and
cheerful. An officer in the Cavalry Division, for instance, writes: "I
am coming back all right, never fear. Have been in such tight corners
and under such fire that if I were meant to go I should have gone by