Just before 3 I got my position, right in the middle of my company. We were going over at 3:25, you know. The trench was deep there, with a hell of a lot of mud and water; but there was no set parapet left; just a gradual slope of muck, as though cartloads of it had been dropped from the sky by giants--spilt porridge. I wanted to be first out, if I could--good effect on the men, you know--but I couldn't trust myself in all that muck, so I'd collared a rum-case from ----'s dugout, and was nursing the blooming thing, so that when the time came I could plant it in the mud and get a bit of a spring from that. Glad I did, too. I passed the word along at a quarter past to be ready for my whistle; but it was all you could do to make a fellow hear by shouting in his ear. Our heavies were giving it lip then, I can tell you. I was in a devil of a stew lest some of my chaps should get over too soon. They kept wriggling up and forward in the mud. They were frightfully keen to get moving. I gathered from my Sergeant their one fear was that if we couldn't get going our artillery would have left no strafing for us to do. Little they knew their Boche, if they thought that. I thought I could just make out our artillery lift, about a minute and a half before the twenty-five, but I wouldn't swear to it. On the stroke of the twenty-five I got a good jump from my rum-box, and fell head first into a little pool--whizz-bang hole, I suppose; something small. It loosened two of my front teeth pretty much. I'd my whistle in my teeth, you see. But I blew like blazes directly I got my head up. Never made a sound. Whistle full of mud. But it didn't matter a bit. They all saw me take my dive, and a lot were in front of me when I got going. But I overhauled 'em, and got in front. II--"DOWN 'EM, BOYS--STICK 'EM" I believe we must have got nearly fifty yards without a casualty. But it's hard to say. It wasn't light, you know; just a glimmering kind of grayness. Not easy to spot casualties. The row, of course, was deafening, and we were running like lamplighters. You remember our practice stunts at home? Short rushes, and taking cover in folds of the ground. "Remember your file of direction, Sir; dressin' by the right," and all that. Oh, the boys remembered it right enough. But, good Lord, it wasn't much like Salisbury Plain, you know. We were going hell for leather. You think you're going strong, and--Woosh! You've got your face deep in porridge. Fallen in a shell hole. You trip over some blame thing, and you turn a complete somersault, and you're on again, wondering where your second wind is. Lord, you haven't a notion whether you're hit or not.