The Importance of Being Present Tense

We were conscious of always being very present tense. We don't want to see ahead too far. If we see ahead, it's what they see, but no more. It was a world in which they were blind. These men in the trenches were blind. So you have the construction where the first 20 minutes, they're almost blind and they don't know what's more than about 50 yards ahead. And then suddenly they're cut adrift in this huge landscape, which is the land that's been fought over,. In which they see for miles and the level of destruction suddenly becomes available to them.