It was terrifying. You'd tread on one on the stomach, perhaps, and it would grunt all the air out of its body. It made your hair stand on end. The smell could make you vomit. And you could always tell whether it was a dead Jerry or a dead Tommy. The Germans smelt different in death.'.
The summer was nearly as bad; diseases flourished in these harsh conditions. It was often difficult to remove the dead and this led to large colonies of rats emerging which fed on corpses and the rations. Almost all of the soldiers suffered from lice. They spread diseases like dysentery and typhoid. Many soldiers whiled away the hours burning the lice out of the seams of their clothes with a match, but it was futile.
"One night, as we lay in bed after doing our two hours' sentry - we did two hours on and two hours off - my friend Jock said 'damn this, I cannot stand it any longer!' He took off his shirt and put it in the middle of the dug-out floor As we sat up in bed watching the shirt he had taken off and put it on the floor it actually lifted; it was swarming with lice.
Gas was a weapon that was as bad if not worse than the natural diseases and conditions in the trenches. Gas was first used by the Germans; chlorine was initially used and then phosgene. Gas was very dangerous because there was the risk that it could blow back to your own side. Phosgene caused the lungs to slowly dissolve, and the patient would drown in his own fluids. Many soldiers covered their mouths with a rag that had been soaked in urine in attempt to keep out the deadly fumes.
"It seemed as if my lungs were gradually shutting up and my heart pounded away in my ears like the beast of a drum. On looking at the chap next to me I felt sick, for green stuff was oozing from the side of his mouth as he died.".
During an attack soldiers would fix bayonets and wait for the whistle from their officer that would order the "over the top", aware that minutes later they stood a good chance of being killed or maimed for life.