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and then Neuville St. Vaast, a town with no walls standing above 6 ft high, made the whole scene just like one of Dante's weird pictures. My own feelings were curious, no fear, but just exhilarated excitement suppressed. I wouldn't have missed it for £1000 and my only fear was for the horses. I rather felt a queer sort of disappointment that a shell hadn't dropped actually on the road, and so reached the climax of frightfulness. I wanted the worst to happen, just to feed my desire for the very limit of horror, and yet during this exhilarated feeling of excitement, I felt quite cool and collected, almost as though I were not part of the scene, but just viewing it, as though in a cinema. I can remember distinctly the cursing of a driver as a section of a platoon filed under his horse's head & climbed between the wheels of 2 vehicles, and I wondered what would happen to the men if either vehicle moved. Then on, again, through the muddy road until we got to the very muddy trenches. Here the mud was up to one's knees in places, while the liquid mud covered the broken bath mats at the bottom, through which one's feet slipped, and made one stumble and sometimes fall. The trench was every now and then almost impassable where one of the uprights had given way and pushed by the pressure on its side across the trench making a small opening through which each one had to crawl, no light matter with the heavy pack and equipment. Now and then a platoon or party walking along a cross trench would hold us up for a time. At last however we got to our destination about 1.30 am, after 7 hours, and then the relieving [illegible]. I was one of the officers on duty till 6 am - always 2 officers continually patrolling

BC Archives, MS-0089 Box 1 File 5 GLASSFORD, Deborah Florence (Leighton). Vancouver Correspondence inward, 1917.

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