The following passage comes from Blasting and Bombardiering, autobiographical reminiscences of Wyndham Lewis published in 1937.

Arrival at ‘the Front’ for us was not unlike arrival at a big Boxing Match, or at a Blackshirt Rally at Olympia. The same sinister expectancy, but more sinister and more electric, the same restless taciturnity of stern-faced persons assembling for a sensational and bloody event, their hearts set on a knock-out. Somebody else’s, of course.

We arrived at railhead at night and a battle was in progress. For a long time, as we moved slowly forward in our darkened coaches, the sound of guns had been getting louder and nearer. There was no moon or stars—all lights had been turned down for the performance. Only the unseen orchestra thundered away, before an unseen stage. We had to imagine the actors which we knew were there, crouching in their sticky labyrinths.

From the crowded carriage-windows, at last, sudden bursts of dull light could be discerned, and last of all an authentic flash had been visible, but still far away—angry and red, like a match struck and blown out again immediately.

We left the train, and finally we reached, I forget how, the fringes of this battle. We reached it unexpectedly. We were collected upon a road, I seem to think. Perhaps we were waiting for lorries to take us to billets—for we of course were not going into action then. we were not for this battle. We had no guns either. They could not be made quickly enough. We were just the personnel of a battery, with no guns, who had come to stand-by, or be parcelled out as reinforcements.

Take note of the following points:

  •  In paragraph 1 the arrival at the Front is compared with a sporting event. You might compare this with Henry Newbolt’s famous poem, ‘Vitae Lampada’ with its ‘breathless hush on the Close tonight’ where the reference is to the cricket-pitch at Clifton College in Bristol.
  • What is the effect of that short last sentence in paragraph 1?
  • The image of a sporting event is changed in paragraph 2 to that of a concert or a play with its ‘unseen orchestra’ and its ‘actors’. What is the effect of using the word ‘labyrinths’ as a description of trenches?
  • Does the mood of the passage change at all in paragraph 3 with the image of the ‘match’, the ‘lucifer’ of the soldiers’ song ‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag’?
  • Is there a tone of bitterness in paragraph 4? What do you make of the phrase concerning the lack of guns? Does the use of the word ‘personnel’ for soldiers make the war more or less terrible?