We
lost as many men, that first winter of the war, by these terrible
afflictions as we did by actual bullets and shell fire.
To us who had come from the Far Northwest the weather was a terrible trial.
Our winters were possibly more severe, but we could stand them so much
better, with their sharp dry cold in contrast to the damp, misty, soaking
chill of this non-zero country. Possibly, at night, the thermometer would
register some two or three degrees below freezing. A thin shell of ice
would form on the ditch which we called a trench. This would crackle round
our legs and the cold would eat into the very bone. At dawn the ice would
begin to break up and a steady sleet begin to fall. Later the sleet would
turn to rain, and so the day would pass till we were soaked through to the
skin. At night the frost would come again and stiffen our clothes to our
tortured bodies, next day another thaw and rain, and so to the end of our
turn, or to the time when an enemy bullet would finish our physical
suffering.
We could have borne all this without a murmur, and did bear it in a silence
that was grim, but we had a greater strain, a mental one, with which to
contend.
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