Page:Lieutenant and Others (1915) by Sapper.djvu/34

 Now, I’ve brought him into the story, because he was the first man to tell them that the reserve trenches they were occupying were not all honey and strawberry jam. He’s a useless young blighter, and unless he’s watched very carefully he always drinks more than his fair share of port. But, in view of the fact that other people will arrive in time and go and sit—if not in those particular trenches, at any rate in trenches like them—I would like to point out that the man on the spot knows what he’s talking about. Also that, because for three days on end you do a thing with perfect safety, it does not follow that you won’t be killed doing it the fourth. And I would like it to be clearly established that my port-drinking looter of mirrors told the officers in the wagon that the line they were going into was habitually shelled. Remember, everything was quiet. Those who may happen to read these words and who know Ypres will bear me witness as to how quiet it can be, and will agree with me that it can frequently be—otherwise.

Now, they dropped him half way, at a place where there are cellars in which a man may live in safety, and there they disembarked