Nevertheless shells fell dangerously near; and once a big one landed directly in the second line trenches, less than a hundred yards below where Company C was stationed. Its toll of death was appalling. A dozen men were blown to atoms. Rocks that had been part of the trench formation were thrown in all directions, dealing death and injury as surely as the explosive itself. The inadvertent first cry of a dozen injured men was enough to shake the nerves of the strongest; for after all in warfare, it is not so much the risking, or even the giving, of one’s life, as it is the agonized suffering of others dying that makes a man quake, and for the moment falter. Tom leaned over toward Harper and tried to shout something in his ear, but the effort was as useless as though the one had been dumb and the other deaf. It was absolutely impossible to make the human voice heard. When an officer wished to issue some brief order, it was only by signs that he could make himself understood. Hour after hour it continued without the slightest halt. Tom Walton began to wonder how much longer it would continue—how much longer such an earth-shaking onslaught _could_ continue. Men who have gone through it know that the strain of such a thing, the absolutely inactive and helpless waiting, is the worst mental torture of all warfare, and far worse than rushing forth into battle which may mean almost certain death. For a time thought seems to be suspended, and there is nothing but the frightful burst of explosions, during which one cannot think. And then comes a period of dulled senses—dulled to the present, and taking one into the past. It is not like the mental sensations of a drowning man, in which the entire past life flashes before the mind in a clear but lightning-like panorama; but rather one takes up separate events, finds himself analyzing them for causes, motives; and, try to shake himself together as he will, cannot for the time rid himself of the melancholy fascination of it. So it was with Tom Walton—perhaps also with Ollie Ogden and George Harper. Men were not cowards who broke down and wept during that awful night. They were not afraid of bodily injury or death. It was the terrible strain upon nerves already strung taut with preparation for, and in anticipation of, the battle which they must fight and win. The very restraint which for the time curbed the fulfillment of their determination was the severest sort of sap upon their vitality. Tom wondered at his own impersonal and disinterested detachment as he stood watching a man of his own company wringing his hands, unable to repress his feelings, the tears rolling down his cheeks. He had known the fellow intimately for months. Twice he had seen him risk his life to aid a comrade. He gazed at him now, but his own feelings were calloused to the other’s misery.