Somme, August 1916 Beginning of August 1916. A wonderful summer sun shone on the Somme: “It wasn’t the right time to kill,” Harold Macmillan wrote to his mother on August 2. Six nights later, the Germans attacked British trenches at the Ypres Outpost and, before the attack, launched a preliminary gas discharge. 19-year-old shallow soldier John Bennett, who was frightened by the sudden, alarming noise, fled the trench to rear guard. When he returned, a few hours later, to the trenches in support of his battalion, he saw that seven men had died and that there were forty-six injured as a result of the gas attack. He was immediately arrested and charged with “misconduct before the enemy.” In Bennett’s trial, his commanding officer made it clear that Bennett, who had enlisted six weeks before the war started, was coming down during the bombing. He was sentenced to death, but during the review procedure, a brigade general recommended that his sentence be changed. Corps Commander...