What Gilson described was the defining, iconic symbol of the war: the trench. For the typical British soldier, life in these elaborate ditches was a quagmire of cold, wet, rat-infested squalor. The trenches were deep enough to shelter a soldier and narrow enough to avoid direct hits from artillery fire. Every few yards a trench zigzagged, to limit the damage from mortar or machine-gun attacks. Trench walls, supported by sandbags, were in a constant state of decay. Trench floors, even if covered with wooden duckboards, filled up with water during heavy rains. “In two-and-a-half miles of trench
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