This story by Edmund Blunden offers an account of the opening days of the 3rd battle of Ypres. This opening section can be compared to ‘The Crash of the Pillars’ section of his memoir ‘Undertones of War’. You can read the manuscript of the full story in The First World War Poetry Digital Archive here
The signalling section went over the top at the tail of the companies and the first part of the attack was carried through so amazingly quickly that whatever blood-lust we had been cultivating had no chance of making good. All the same some of our impressions may be interesting. We had hardly crawled out to our starting point when a roaring drone away back signified that one of our heavy batteries had opened and immediately a devil’s concert of artillery and M.G. struck up. The Bosch had been pumping shells in during the assembly and now he barraged too, almost synchronising his guns with ours; we now began to sweat blood and my tongue seemed (like the Psalmist’s) to cleave to the roof of my mouth. It was unnerving also to see the oil drums flaring on HIGH COMMAND, and round there the Bosche put over a number of star shells which helped to make No Mans Land as light as broad daylight for a minute.
This item is from The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford (www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit); © The Harry Ransom Center / The Edmund Blunden Literary Estate