4 May to 5 August 1915
When a bloke got the chance he’d crawl into his dugout to take shelter from the heat of the day. Usually no wind stirred and a man would sleep heavily in the heat; it didn’t take long for exhaustion and fatigue to take over. Even the swarming flies eventually subsided into the subconscious as a man surrendered himself to sleep. His lullaby might include the sound of an officer yelling for a sapper (as communications were down after some damn fool had tripped over the wire – again!), an NCO storming up and down the line giving orders, or the yell of an enemy soldier, but it always included the crack of a rifle or an exploding bomb. Just overhead, bullets would fly past and in his sleep the stink of the corpses just yards away would seep into a man’s nightmares.
David Cameron
The Battle for Lone Pine