“One so often sees them—these seemingly purposeless groups, awaiting events with the grim immobility of Sioux braves . . . . doing nothing in places where no man would be for choice. Stretcher bearers they may be, or runners, or a company that has left the sickly foetid odours of the dug outs—reminiscent of fowl houses and tramps in summer—to make room for the relief, and is now standing by in all the taciturn boredom of that condition—silent men whom you pass, with all their taciturnity, with the feeling that they have passed a verdict on you annihilating in its justice. . . . .

“It is men like myself—timid peepers into forbidden places, who look and go, who keep their virginal wonderment at what are the commonplaces of the trenches. And these silent watchers are such a commonplace. . . . Perhaps the men familiar with it are unimpressed by the statuesque quietism of these men in places of risk and great events. . . . with their perpetual air of prisoners innocent and awaiting an unjust sentence. . . . They lounge there awaiting something that will send them into the glare of that limelight again like supers in a tragedy in which the supers are greater tragedians than the heroes.”