The smell was mainly decomposing flesh. Nothing glorious about that. On the upside, soldiers were at least rarely hungry, and there was a lot of food from home, which is worth underscoring because it reminds us that home wasn't very far away. Even for the British, at their closest, the front was only 70 miles from England. They could read newspapers from London one day later than Londoners could. While going over the top – Stan, no puns in this episode! Right, while going over the top of the trench to cross no man's land and attack the enemy trench is what lights our romantic imagination, most soldiers' lives were dominated by the fear of shelling.