“MEN stumbled forward through mud and slime. At every step they sank over the boot-tops in sodden soil; not a few sank waist-deep in the yawning, water-filled shell holes – but they staggered on with the grim persistency which is the outstanding attribute of the average Englishman and the source of wonder to foreign nations.”

This appalling, but chest-swelling, scene is painted by Major Chesnutt-Chesney, officer commanding the 2/6^th Lancashire Fusiliers who attacked the infamous Passchendaele Ridge on the morning of October 9, 1917.