Ghosts

"The rain becomes heavier. We take out waterproof sheets and spread them over our heads. The rain rattles down, and flows off at the sides in streams...
... grey sky, grey fluid earth, grey dying. If we go out, the rain at once soaks through our overcoat and clothing; and we remain wet all the time we are in the line. We never get dry. Those who will wear high boots tie sand bags round the tops so that the mud does not pour in so fast. The rifles are caked, the uniforms caked, everything is fluid and dissolved, the earth one dripping, soaked, oily mass in which lie yellow pools with red spiral streams of blood and into which the dead, wounded, and survivors slowly sink down...
Our hands are earth, our bodies clay and our eyes pools of rain. We do not know whether we still live."
Erich Maria Remarque, 'All quiet on the Western Front'

"We had no blankets, greatcoats, or waterproof sheets, nor any time or material to build new shelters. The rain poured down. Every night we went out to fetch in the dead."
Robert Graves, 'Goodbye to All That'

The rain hurled itself out of the sky, turning the buildings into hazy dark outlines against the lighter grey sky behind. It bounced off the ground, poured across uneven pavements and turned the gutters into streams too wide to step over. Water oozed upwards into my boots so that with each step my feet squelched in their own private pools. Rain made rivulets of my hair and dripped off my nose and my chin. 
Me, this evening

Tivoli and I waited in the rain by the Tower of London for an hour as dusk deepened. At exactly 5 a trumpet heralded a flaming torch, brought out of the fortress gate and down to the beefeaters in the moat (extra). We had no idea that the lighting of 10,000 small torches in the grass would start, in a short respite in the rain, right below us. For another hour we watched the circle of light gradually fan out. 

Under the rain we found we were both thinking of the 1914-18 soldiers, dug-in, wet, cold, lousy, frightened, with feet decaying in boots that hadn't been dry for days and wouldn't be for days more. For us, it lasted only part of an evening, standing not in mud but on stone, wearing 21st century waterproof jackets and able to walk away whenever we wanted. As we did, into a warm friendly pub, then across the road for a bite to eat, before making our separate ways homeward.