Energy books

In Plug Street Wood the trees had worn thin under showers of shrapnel,
but the long avenues between the trenches were cool and pleasant in
the heat of the day. It was one of the elementary schools where many
of our soldiers learned the A B C of actual warfare after their
training in camps behind the lines. Here one might sport with
Amaryllis in the shade, but for the fact that country wenches were not
allowed in the dugouts and trenches, where I found our soldiers
killing flies in the intervals between pot-shots at German periscopes.
The enemy was engaged, presumably, in the same pursuit of killing time
and life (with luck), and sniping was hot on both sides, so that the
wood resounded with sharp reports as though hard filbert nuts were
being cracked by giant teeth. Each time I went there one of our men
was hit by a sniper, and his body was carried off for burial as I went
toward the first line of trenches, hoping that my shadow would not
fall across a German periscope.


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