Frederic Manning
An extract from Chapter 1
The dugout was full of men, and all the drawn, pitiless faces
turned to see who it was as he entered, and after that flicker of
interest relapsed into apathy and stupor again. The air was thick
with smoke and the reek of guttering candles. He saw Shem lift a
hand to attract his attention, and he managed to squeeze in beside
him. They didn’t speak after each had asked the other if he were
all right; some kind of oppression weighed on them all, they sat
like men condemned to death.
“Wonder if they’ll keep us up in support?” whispered Shem.
Probably that was the question they were all asking, as they sat
there in their bitter resignation, with brooding enigmatic faces,
hopeless, but undefeated; even the faces of boys seeming curiously
old; and then it changed suddenly: there were quick hurried
movements, belts were buckled, rifles taken up, and stooping, they
crawled up into the air. Shem and Bourne were among the first out.
They moved off at once.
Shells travelled overhead; they heard one or two bump fairly
close, but they saw nothing except the sides of the trench,
whitish with chalk in places, and the steel helmet and lifting
swaying shoulders of the man in front, or the frantic uplifted
arms of shattered trees, and the sky with the clouds broken in
places, through which opened the inaccessible peace of the stars.
They seemed to hurry, as though the sense of escape filled them.
The walls of the communication trench became gradually lower, the
track sloping upward to the surface of the ground, and at last they
emerged, the officer standing aside, to watch what was left of his
men file out, and form up in two ranks before him. There was
little light, but under the brims of the helmets one could see
living eyes moving restlessly in blank faces. His face, too, was
a blank from weariness, but he stood erect, an ash-stick under his
arm, as the dun-coloured shadows shuffled into some sort of order.
The words of command that came from him were no more than whispers,
his voice was cracked and not quite under control, though there was
still some harshness in it. Then they moved off in fours, away from
the crest of the ridge, towards the place they called Happy Valley.
They had not far to go. As they were approaching the tents a
crump dropped by the mule-lines, and that set them swaying a
little, but not much. Captain Malet called them to attention a
little later; and from the tents, camp-details, cooks, snobs, and
a few unfit men, gathered in groups to watch them, with a sympathy
genuine enough, but tactfully aloof; for there is a gulf between
men just returned from action, and those who have not been in the
show, as unbridgeable as that between the sober and the drunk.
Captain Malet halted his men by the orderly-room tent. There was
even a pretence to dress ranks. Then he looked at them, and they
at him for a few seconds which seemed long. They were only
shadows in the darkness.
“Dismiss!”
His voice was still pitched low, but they turned almost with the
precision of troops on the square, each rifle was struck smartly,
the officer saluting; and then the will which bound them together
dissolved, the enervated muscles relaxed, and they lurched off to
their tents as silent and as dispirited as beaten men. One of the
tailors took his pipe out of his mouth and spat on the ground
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
This extract plunges readers into the raw immediacy of a wartime moment, where men in a dugout hover between life and death, their existence reduced to silent endurance. The atmosphere is suffocating, laden with smoke, candle wax, and a collective sense of foreboding. It captures the peculiar liminality of soldiers’ lives, poised between action and waiting, resignation and survival. The faces of the men—”hopeless, but undefeated”—reveal a grim determination beneath their apathy, emphasizing the psychological toll of war.
The shift from the oppressive dugout to the movement outside mirrors a change in tempo but not in tone. The trenches and shattered trees, described with stark, tactile details, feel claustrophobic despite being in the open air. The sky, with its fleeting glimpse of stars, offers a momentary contrast to the carnage, but it’s an inaccessible peace, underscoring the soldiers’ disconnection from any semblance of normal life.
There’s a haunting irony in the names used, such as “Happy Valley,” juxtaposed with the desolation of their surroundings. Even moments of routine—forming ranks, obeying whispered commands—feel hollow and mechanical, like rituals performed out of habit rather than purpose. The officer’s voice, cracking and barely controlled, reflects the collective weariness of leadership and rank alike. His ash-stick, an almost frail symbol of authority, contrasts with the men’s rifles, emphasizing their shared vulnerability.
The gulf between those who have been in the “show” and those who haven’t is sharply drawn. The camp-details watching them return embody a subdued respect but also a fundamental separation, reinforcing the isolating experience of combat. The moment of dismissal, where discipline dissolves and men scatter to their tents, is poignant—less a release and more a collapse. It encapsulates how war fragments not only bodies but spirits, leaving even the survivors diminished and disoriented.
The closing image, of a tailor casually spitting after observing the scene, adds an unsettling touch of normalcy. It grounds the narrative in the mundane, contrasting sharply with the enormity of what the soldiers have endured. The extract is steeped in the small, unspoken details of war: exhaustion, disconnection, and the quiet perseverance of men bound together by duty but divided by trauma. It is an unvarnished, deeply human portrayal of the experience of war, devoid of heroics yet filled with resilience.