ifle-barrel. Perhaps
sitting up there snugly behind a bullet-proof shield fastened to the
limbs was a German sharpshooter, watching for a shot with the
patience of a hound for a rabbit to come out of its hole.

"It's about time we gave that tree a spray good for that kind of fungus,
from a machine-gun!"

A bullet coming from our side swept overhead. One of our own
sharpshooters had seen something to shoot at.

"Not giving you much excitement!" said Tommy.

"I suppose I'd get a little if I stood up on the parapet?" I asked.

"You wouldn't get a ticket for England; you'd get a box!"

"There's a cemetery just behind the lines if you'd prefer to stay in
France!"

I had passed that cemetery with its fresh wooden crosses on my way
to the trench. These tenderhearted soldiers who joked with death had
placed flowers on the graves of fallen comrades and bought
elaborate French funeral wreaths with their meagre pay--which is
another side of Mr. Thomas Atkins. There is sentiment in him. Yes,
he's loaded with sentiment, but not for the "movies."

"Keep your head down there, Eames!" called a corporal. "I don't want
to be taking an inventory of your kit."

Eames did not even realize that his head was above the parapet. The
hardest thing to teach a soldier is not to expose himself. Officers keep
iterating warnings and then forget to practise what they preach. That
morning a soldier had been shot through the heart and arm sideways
behind the trench. He had lain down unnoticed for a nap in the sun, it
was supposed. When he awoke, presumably he sat up and yawned
and Herr Schmidt, from some platform in a tree, had a bloody reward
for his patience.

The next morning I saw the British take their revenge. Some German
who thought that he could not be seen in the mist of dawn was
walking along the German parapet. What hopes! Four or five men
took careful aim and fired. That dim figure collapsed in a way that was
convincing.

As I swept the line of German trenches with the glasses I saw a wisp
of flag clinging to its pole in the still air far down to the left. Flags
are as unusual above trenches as men standing up in full view of
the enemy. Then a breeze caught the folds, and I saw that it was
the tricolour of France.

"A Boche joke!" Tommy explained.

"Probably they are hating the French to-day?"

"No, it's been there for some days. They want us to shoot at the flag
of our ally. They'd get a laugh out of that--a regular Boche