Asked what it feels like to be under fire, a soldier replied: "It makes you sweat waiting for the shock of getting hit. It is the suspense that tries. The first few weeks at the war are awful. You awaken in your sleep and think you are being fired at. Not that the German infantry are good marksmen (the artillery are). Why, the other day I noticed a chap who had been aiming in my direction for several minutes, and none of ours had been touched. I stood up and said to a chum: 'Watch that chap. I bet you he won't hit me.' And he didn't, for I heard the bullet whistle by several inches wide." The feeling of waiting to go under fire is thus described: "We were to hold the trenches at all costs, and things began to take a serious turn. It was then that I and my chum took photographs we had with us from our pockets and looked long into the faces of those we had left at home. Then we took out our small books and made our wills, and then waited." A private of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment wrote: "There were many field artillery drivers with spare horses behind a shed, and one was asleep in front of me on a truss of hay. A shell from a 'Black Maria' came over the corner of the shed and dropped not more than 8 feet from me. It killed the poor driver and blew one horse up and the other horses into a heap. It seemed to me as if I had been suddenly thrown into a white hot furnace, and a big metallic door slammed on me. I was dazed for five minutes and shaky all day, but the feeling soon wore off. It is wonderful how soon you get over these things. These 'Black Maria' shells make a screaming noise, followed by a terrific explosion, but the effect is purely local, except for splinters flying. Next day we came under rifle fire as well as big gun fire. Then we knew it. It was not a pleasant sight to see men falling around you screaming. I remember saying to a chap alongside of me, 'I wouldn't give twopence for my chance.'" "It's a curious sort of feeling," another man wrote, "to be under fire. It's--well you feel that war is a really dangerous thing." Much of course depends upon the soldier's temperament. An officer had the moral courage to write in a letter, "I have been under fire a few times now, and like it less every time." An Indian soldier gave the impression of himself and of his fellows: "The shell fire was a bit troublesome at first, because it was far worse than anything we had ever experienced in frontier fighting, and few of us had had any experience of being under fire. We soon got used to it, and it didn't trouble us more than thunder. The rifle fire wasn't so bad, for the Germans aren't very good shots. Still, it was annoying to us to have to lie still under it when we like to be getting to close grips."