be exerted and to be tested.

The gathering generally occurs at dusk with guns roaring & shells bursting.

If it was like some of the things we had to do each man knows full well that the chances are against his coming out of it unhurt - And though they talk so freely about the joy of receiving a blighty they know that this may mean agony sustained through days of exposure in the rain & mud possibly to be concluded by a still more ghastly wound.

This is the time when one's heart glows to see how the men respond & how cheerfully they face what is ahead.