And yet it was an ordinary episode, no degree worse in its
hardship than what happened all along the line when there was an
attack or counter-attack in foul weather.
The marvel of it was that our men, who were very simple men, should
have "stuck it out" with that grandeur of courage which endured all
things without self-interest and without emotion. They were
unconscious of the virtue that was in them.
XVII
Going up to the line by Ypres, or Armentieres, or Loos, I noticed in
those early months of 1916 an increasing power of artillery on our
side of the lines and a growing intensity of gun-fire on both sides.
Time was, a year before, when our batteries were scattered thinly
behind the lines and when our gunners had to be thrifty of shells,
saving them up anxiously for hours of great need, when the S O S
rocket shot up a green light from some battered trench upon which the
enemy was concentrating "hate."
Those were ghastly days for gunner officers, who had to answer
telephone messages calling for help from battalions whose billets were
being shelled to pieces by long--range howitzers, or from engineers
whose working-parties were being sniped to death by German field-guns,
or from a brigadier who wanted to know, plaintively, whether the
artillery could not deal with a certain gun which was enfilading a
certain trench and piling up the casualties.
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