midday
`` Well , if it did , it did , '' Hastings answered . `` Cut out your chills , Jeb , and let 's get this feller in ! '' But Jeb could not `` cut out '' the chill at once because another shell burst while he was looking , driving him into a panic so acute that Hastings began to swear . Toward midday the wind fell and the heat became intense . Smoke , acrid and at times stifling , hung in the hollows like white - and brown-streaked palls , and the unwholesome smell of burning which infests battlefields was sickening . Jeb 's clothes were wringing wet , and each time he panted across the first trench bridge he noted how the waiting men under steel helmets were drenched with perspiration . One of them called up to him : `` It 's our turn next !