The two packets that I read were absolutely awful, not meaning boring or bad, but in disgusting. I cannot imagine going through what they had to go through each and everyday that they were in the trenches. There were so many gross things like the rats, sanitary conditions, lice, and the mud.
The most terrible thing would have to be the rats. The rats would not only munch on a dead person, but also on a wounded person. The would walk around the men at night and steal their food in their sleep. Not only would the eat "real" food, but they'd eat the eyes and livers of dead people. These rats, which weren't your everyday household-size rats, had a big population and were just disgusting.
Another thing that I found awful were the sanitary conditions. There were many sick people and many diseases around. There was garbage and human wastes all around the trenches--there were supposed to be latrine pots, but those weren't used and weren't effective in helping the sanitary conditions. There were also dead bodies spewed all over the place...not to mention the rats.
Lice was also a common, daily thing. It was everywhere. The men would try and get rid of them by cleaning themselves and their clothing, by putting fingernails on the seams of their clothes, anything to get rid of them. Nothing helped. Even if they put their clothes in a "Foden Disinfector" it would get rid of the lice, but not the eggs; within minutes they'd be crawling with more lice.
Mud was also a daily encounter in the lives of the men. Some people would actually drown in it. Some would make it through very slowly, like going 1200 yards in three hours slow, and some would get trapped in it.
The shells that had gas in them were also terrible; some contained chlorine gas and some contained mustard gas, the worse of the two. If someone got sick from the gas, it would take them a month or more to die. One way that they tried to protect themselves was to put a cotton pad over their mouth and nose...that was covered with urine. Gross...how very, very gross.
There were so many terrible things that they encountered while living in the trenches, and many of the things that were in the packets, I didn't know before. All I know is that the trenches were terrible places to be!
