The servants lived in the shaft alongside which was a place measuring four feet by four feet. There were no other dugouts where men could get any shelter from shells or storms, and the enemy’s guns were never silent.

But the men held on, as most of our men held on, with a resignation to fate and a stoic endurance beyond that ordinary human courage which we seemed to know before the war.

The chaplain of this battalion had spent all the long night behind the lines, stoking fires and going round the cookhouses and looking at his wristwatch to see how the minutes were crawling past. He had tea, rum, socks, oil, and food all ready for those who were coming back, and the lighted braziers were glowing red.

At the appointed time the padre went out to meet his friends, pressing forward through the snow and listening for any sound of footsteps through the great hush.

But there was no sound except the soft flutter of snowflakes. He strained his eyes for any moving shadows of men. But there was only darkness and the falling snow.