TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

and I sat speechless, deafened and stupefied by the
seismic state of affairs, and when he lit a cigarette the
match flame staggered crazily. Afterwards I asked
him what he had been thinking about. His reply was
"Carpet slippers and kettle-holders". My own mind
had been working in much the same style, for during
that cannonading cataclysm the following refrain was
running in my head:

They come as a boon and a blessing to men,
The Something, the Owl, and the Waverley Pen.

For the life of me I couldn't remember what the
first one was called. Was it the Shakespeare? Was
it the Dickens? Anyhow it was an advertisement
which Td often seen in smoky railway stations. Then
the bombardment lifted and lessened, our vertigo
abated, and we looked at one another in dazed relief.
Two Brigades of our Division were now going over the
top on our right. Our Brigade was to attack "when
the main assault had reached its final objective". In
our fortunate role of privileged spectators Barton and
I went up the stairs to see what we could from King-
ston Road Trench. We left Jenkins crouching in a
' corner, where he remained most of the day. His
haggard blinking face haunts my memory. He was
an example of the paralysing effect which such an ex-
perience could produce on a nervous system sensitive
to noise, for he was a good officer both before and after-
wards* I felt no sympathy for him at the time, but I
do now. From the support-trench, which Barton
called "our opera box", I observed as much of the
battle as the formation of the country allowed, the
rising ground on the right making it impossible to see
anything of the attack towards Mametz. A small
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