“it is quite impossible to sleep if one is lying under a tarpaulin with 5.9s and 8” shells falling within a 100 yards. To begin with, there is the suspense of waiting between shells, which may vary from five seconds to ten minutes. Then there is the four or five seconds beginning with the first faint whine of the shell in the far distance, which rapidly rises to the well known rushing scream; then there is the crash as it lands, which makes the whole place shake for a couple of 100 yards, and finally the angry ‘zip’ of the flying splinters, which may be any size from a match to the size of a large meat-chopper, weighing up to 20lb, and with jagged edges like fish-hooks all over them”
-Major Ralph Hamilton