"
Everything was very quiet at the moment--no rifles popping, as I
had expected, no bullets flying, and, as it happened, absolutely no
shelling in the whole sector.
I forgot to say that we had come up by daylight. Ordinarily troops
are moved at night, but the communication trench from Bully-Grenay
was very deep and was protected at points by little hills, and it
was possible to move men in the daytime.
Arrived in the front trench, the sergeant-major appeared, crawling
out of his dug-out--the usual place for a sergeant-major--and
greeted us with,
"Keep your nappers down, you rooks. Don't look over the top. It
ayen't 'ealthy."
It is the regular warning to new men. For some reason the first
emotion of the rookie is an overpowering curiosity. He wants to
take a peep into No Man's Land. It feels safe enough when things
are quiet. But there's always a Fritzie over yonder with a
telescope-sighted rifle, and it's about ten to one he'll get you if
you stick the old "napper" up in daylight.
The Germans, by the way, have had the "edge" on the Allies in the
matter of sniping, as in almost all lines of artillery and musketry
practice.
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