[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Just like Nerwen, I'm not sure indeed whether the "dugout" necessarily refers to any "trench memories", even if it was unconscious. However, I shouldn't have a say on this at all since I am not a native English speaker, so I have no idea which connotations the word might have in general.

I would believe, however, that there might be some real "slips" like that present in the works here and there. Now I am not really talking about some deeply psychological stuff - the mere idea of starting to dissect Tolkien's works in order to find some Freudian slips or other stuff pointing to his past traumas or whatever makes me sick, I don't think it would be even appropriate. But there are, of course, things, which he himself had reported to be in some way inspired by his WW (ahem! I hope you all do know how to read this abbreviation) experiences, like the Dead Marshes or stuff like that. And I think that it might be indeed possible to find something which may not be so "obvious" on first sight - not in the sense that "oh, the fact that he had not mentioned Balrog's wings points to the fact that when he was seven, a magpie had stolen his favourite toothbrush", which is basically the kind of things I meant above, but more like the "dugout" stuff, if it was indeed true.

Random thing that comes to my mind, and I'm not even sure if I haven't read about this somewhere - the scene when Bilbo wakes up after the Battle of the Five Armies, wasn't this somehow connected to some war experiences of Tolkien, or maybe some impressions or things that had occured to him (awakening after the battle when nobody was there anymore)? Does anybody know whether there really wasn't anything written about that anywhere? Or if not, do you think it would be possible that such a thing would be something inspired by the War experiences (I don't know, like, spending some time unconscious and missing a large part of the battle)?