What was all the weight they carried? No need to ask. The
"dumps" were being filled, piled up, with row upon row of shells,
covered by tarpaulin or brushwood when they were all stacked. Enormous
shells, some of them, like gigantic pigs without legs. Those were for
the fifteen-inchers, or the 9.2's. There was enough high-explosive
force littered along those roads above the Somme to blow cities off
the map.
"It does one good to see," said a cheery fellow. "The people at home
have been putting their backs into it. Thousands of girls have been
packing those things. Well done, Munitions!"
I could take no joy in the sight, only a grim kind of satisfaction
that at least when our men attacked they would have a power of
artillery behind them. It might help them to smash through to a
finish, if that were the only way to end this long-drawn suicide of
nations.
My friend was shocked when I said:
"Curse all munitions!"
II
The British armies as a whole were not gloomy at the approach of that
new phase of war which they called "The Great Push," as though it were
to be a glorified football-match.
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