stirringwinds:

‘before it all…started…we were sitting around and waiting. people read plays, wrote letters home, mended their kit and of course, enjoyed a warm drink where possible. i got several to try masala chai. one boy, who had in his old life been studying mathematics, insisted on debating the historical importance of the number zero with me when he found out i had ‘some mathematical training.’ someone also jokingly decided our section would be named ‘buckingham palace’ and affixed the appropriate sign. when i think of what happened after that, those moments are utterly surreal.’

Ypres, 1915