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the hum of the bullets was inaudible. Against the background of grey sky and glittering rockets the flash of guns showed dimly, but the enemy was invisible.
    Beyond the brow of the hill there seemed to be no one advancing. To the left some khaki figures were firing desperately from a fragment of trench, but directly ahead there was no movement. As they crossed the crest men began to fall rapidly all along the line. Everitt and his neighbours flung themselves on the ground, cowering into shell-holes if they were lucky enough to drop near one. ‘What do we do now?’ asked someone. No one knew and there was no one to give orders. Higgins at least had given his last.
    Now was the test of discipline and initiative. The choice lay between organized rushes forward and indefinite delay, and it was not entirely a matter of courage or cowardice; duty or shirking. Against what was evidently overwhelming fire, any advance might well be suicidal folly and in the absence of leadership and encouragement, the law of self-preservation swept aside all discipline: since no one seemed to care what happened, men determined to play their own hands. No doubt that moment of hesitation marked the failure of the attack. Hitherto, while there had never been any pretence of enthusiasm, at least the attempt was being made. Now they were fatally quiescent. It is a commonplace of war that a man who takes cover during an advance will never get up again until the battle is over. Everitt lay as flat as the bulging equipment allowed, and almost immediately felt horribly afraid. While he was walking forward he was doing something and his mind could occupy itself with the details of the advance – the men, the fire signals of the Germans, the lie of the land, the physical labour of covering the broken ground. All these things kept thought away. But now there was nothing to do but think, and the thoughts were black.
    He was convinced that the attack was a failure. Lying face downwards, almost biting the earth, he could see nothing, but an occasional upward jerk of his head showed him that all forward movement had ceased completely. The man nearest to him yelled suddenly, ‘I’m hit, I’m hit,’ and writhed helplessly in the tangle of his equipment. Everitt, feeling himself a cur, dragged himself away into the shallow depression of a small shell-hole. There he lay at first like a log, his nose and mouth pressed into the earth, not daring to raise his head. Then he began to scoop the soil from beneath his body, hoping thus to deepen his shelter. His legs from the knees downwards were hopelessly exposed, but by enlarging the hole he might at least obtain cover from view. The ‘crump’ from a high explosive shell shook the ground like an earthquake, and a sharp pain stung his foot. But this was the merest momentary pang, like the prick of a needle, and the pain stirred him to fiercer efforts. Involuntarily he called out, ‘I’ve caught one,’ but no one took the smallest notice. As he lay he could see the spurt of the earth where bullets were striking, and some of them were pitching not a yard away. His awkward scooping had done little to deepen the hole, and it was obvious that movement was dangerous.
    Suddenly there came a tremendous jerk sideways to his left leg, much as though someone had kicked it with a padded boot. The sensation was sickening and numbing rather than painful, and involuntarily he grunted through gritted teeth to keep back a louder cry. The qualm of sickness and surprise passed quickly, and he realized that he was hit. In desperation he glanced sideways at his leg, and saw a red stain soaking through the puttees. But he felt no warm welling of blood and gambled on the safety of the artery. A severed main-artery will kill a man in five minutes, but to sit up and apply a tourniquet was suicide. It was better to leave the wound unbandaged. For the rest, he had no notion whether his leg were broken, and