The veterans of the Somme have gone now but while they lived they talked incessantly of the mud of the Somme, mud which permeated everything, clogged rifles, flowed like lava into dugouts and trenches, sucked off boots, drowned wounded men and horses and made movement either impossible or a tremendous physical effort. To fight on the Somme was bad enough; to also fight the mud of the Somme was simply too much.