Towards evening, when the bombardment had stopped under threat of
artillery retaliation, I revisited the scene of the explosion and salvaged the mortar undamaged. The dug-out was a complete wreck, and the gun team which it had sheltered wiped out. Of the three men forming it who had been below at the time of the explosion one was either killed outright or suffocated ; the second had died of wounds before the rescue party could reach him ; and the third, a lance-corporal, a magnificently handsome fellow, had been saved alive by a falling beam but totally blinded. Gradually the recollection came back to me that I had met him, being led away, during my period of raving in the communication trench ; that his hands were outstretched piteously before him, a great- coat thrown grotesquely over his broad shoulders, and that there were curious blue circles round his eyes. All this my brain must have recorded subconsciously, for though they told me afterwards that I had spoken to him, and that we had said an affecting good-bye to one another, I cannot 'remember the interview, or what was said. Only those sightless, blue-lidded eyes, and the dreadful ravaged look on his face while they led him gently away. . . .
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