The larks are singing above the melting mists and there's a sense of peace in the air. One by one the signallers tumble up the dug-out stairs; they stand in the trench yawning, stretching themselves and breathing in the golden coolness. Very lazily they set to work preparing breakfast. They have to be careful lest any smoke escapes and gives away our post to the enemy. If once the Hun suspected we were here, it wouldn't take him long to knock us out. They'll be bringing me in some stewed tea presently; I can hear the bacon sizzling. I wish there was some water to wash with; but we gave must of ours to the wounded last night.
I was in England this spring when the big Hun drive against Paris started. I'd just recovered from being wounded and directly I heard the news, commenced moving heaven and earth to get back. Heaven and earth didn't require much moving--men were too badly needed. I reported back to my reserve depot on a Wednesday and within the hour was told that I could proceed on the next draft leaving for France. I was given a two days' leave to collect my kit, and permission to join the draft at the London station.
That London leave is curiously blurred in my memory. It was only my body that was in England; my soul was in France. I rushed from tailors to bankers, from bankers to bootmakers, from bootmakers to lunches and theatres; I met people and laughed with people and said "Good-bye" to people, but there was nothing real in anything that I saw or did. In imagination I saw myself on the Amiens road fighting. "Our backs are to the wall", Sir Douglas Haig had told us. "The Canadians will advance or fall with their faces to the foe"--that was how my Corps Commander's special order had run. Every moment that I was not there with the chaps seemed shameful. If we were beaten back it seemed that it would be my fault--one more man in the line might make all the difference.
How little I was noticing the world about me was emphasized by one small incident. I had been taxi riding all over the map in a frenzied effort to collect my gear. In these war-days London taxi-drivers have developed short tempers, especially for fares who keep them waiting. My man had been extraordinarily docile. At the end of two hours, when I had deposited some of my baggage at Victoria, I said to him, "I suppose I'd better pay you off now. I've got to go to Battersea; you won't want to go there, so I'll have to go by train."