that we were soon to get into the thick of the big game ple

eached Rouen, twenty-four hours later, we had kinks in our legs and corns on our elbows. Also we were hungry, having had nothing but bully beef a

lin, it's not the same-in an abandoned convent within range of the Ger

reason we didn't seem to mind. I had expected to get the shivers at the first sound of

ar and some bacon and bread for breakfast, and marched around to the "quarters", where they issued "tin hats", extra "ammo",

he's unhappy. He resents especially having anything officially added to his pack, and yo

attalion, and after some "wangling" I got into Company C, where I stopped all t

the lines we were extended into artillery formation, that is, spread o

most frankly and freely on our appearance. They didn't seem to think we would amount to much, and said so. They agree

irst taste of mud. That is literal, for with mud knee-deep in a trench

many dead have been buried so hastily and so lightly that they are constantly being uncovered by shell bursts. The acrid stench pervades everyt

nty. We finally landed in a support trench called "Mechanics" (every tren

w step running along one side, and with sandbags on top. Here and there was a muddy, bedraggled Tommy half asleep, nursing a dirty and muddy rifle on "sentry go."

night, but the communication trench from Bully-Grenay was very deep and was prot

appeared, crawling out of his dug-out-the usua

ou rooks. Don't look over

ants to take a peep into No Man's Land. It feels safe enough when things are quiet. But there's always a Fritzie over yo

rifle mounted on a periscope frame. It is thrust up over the parapet and the image of the opposing parapet is cast on a little ground-glass screen on which are two crossed lines. At one hundred fifty yards or less the image is brought up to touching distanc

thrust the thing up than a bullet crashed into the upper mirror, splint

le and had to hide himself behind old masonry, tree trunks, or anything convenient,

as the best of the lot, and we became fast friends. He helped me learn a lot of my n

me along with two others of the new men down to our "apa

ur and a half feet high-you had to get in doubled up on your hands and knees-about five by six feet on the sides, and there was no floor, just

s of char boiling away. Everybody was smoking, and the place stunk to high

extra crowding. They regarded me with extra disfavor because I was a lance corporal, and they disapproved of any young whipper-snapper just out from Blighty with

ripe off ye, me bold lad

gs looked "t' 'ome." And then somebody asked what was the latest song. Right here was where I made my hit and got in

k to dear o

e tryne for

ke me o

p me an

Leeds, or

n't

go see m

up soon

ddle de

back to

he plyce

sn't quite up to Kipling's. But the song had a pretty little lilting melody, and it w

t sentimenta

loody mud like a blinkin' frog. Fightin' fer wot? Wot, I arsks yer? Gawd lumme! I'd give me bloomin' napper t

Aig. Drop me down in Great Lime Street (Liverpool) an' it's me fer the Golden Sheaf, and a pin

huskey. Gimme a jug o' cider on the sunny side of a 'ay rick in old Sur

bar-maids and the things they'd e

art with for a permanent Blighty wound when a young officer pushed aside the burlap and

he hoped we'd be live wires, and then he told us what he wanted. The

a long minute, an

I was led a little by a kind of youthful curiosity, and it may be that I wanted to appear br

one of the other new men

and that they were not expected to volunteer. At l

we could. "Kip" in this case meant closing our eyes and dozing. I sat humped u

emy, the "cootie." The cootie, or the "chat" as he is called by the officers, is the common body louse. Common is right