After ordering some tea in the station buffet, Walter sat down at a table and gazed out of the window. The platforms appeared to be brimming with men in uniform, some were raw recruits, heading off to the war for the first time, and Walter thought that most would never return. He himself was a good officer and faithful to King and Country, however Captain Boyle didn't harbor any false illusions about the war. For him it was mass butcher; there was no other approach to portray it; and it had continued for a really long time. While he was on leave, Walter had been frequented by terrible nightmares. He had woken night after night drenched in sweat and knew that he had been shouting. Amusingly enough it wasn't so awful while he was at the front, there were an excess of real horrors and Captain Boyle's days were occupied, so there wasn't generally time to be frightened, even while sleeping. At least not until the order came through to go over the top. And afterward it required a huge effort of determination to seem calm and to mount the top rung of the ladder before driving his men into dead zone. Often these attacks were done at walking pace with fixed bayonets ; they would wade through the thick glutinous mud, which sapped the strength from your legs, into the hell of machine gun bullets, barb wire and explosives. The mud ran red with the blood of his men and the screams of the injured. The expense in human life could in Walters' psyche, never be justified.
In any case, more awful, far more regrettable than charging into the anarchy and viciousness of the machine guns, was the consistent shelling . It was the noise of a high explosive shell that terrorized them. This was what shattered strong men's nerves, diminishing them to shaking, hollow eyed madmen. Men who had served bravely all of a sudden broke; they lost control of their bowels and bladders and nestled into the sludge and filth at the base of the trenches.