iling sandbags in the wheatfield. The plan was to slip out as
soon as it was really dark with a machine-gun and a dozen men, get
behind the Germans' own sandbags, and give them a perfectly
informal reception when they returned to go on with their work.

Before dinner, however, J------, who was to be the general of the
expedition, and his subordinates made a reconnaissance. Two or
more officers or men always go out together on any trip of this kind in
that ticklish space between the trenches, where it is almost certain
death to be seen by the enemy. If one is hit the other can help him
back. If one survives he will bring back the result of his investigations.

J----had his own ideas about comfort in trousers in the trench in
summer. He wore shorts with his knees bare. When he had to do a
"crawl" he unwound his puttees and wound them over his knees. He
and the others slipped over the parapet without attracting the
attention of the enemy's sharpshooters. On hands and knees, like
boy scouts playing Indians, they passed through a narrow avenue in
the ugly barbed wire, and still not a shot at them. A matter of the
commonplace to the men in the trench held the spectator in
suspense. There was a fascination about the thing, too; that of the
sporting chance, without a full realization that failure in this hide-and-
seek game might mean a spray of bullets and death for these young
men.

They entered the wheat, moving slowly like two land turtles. The grain
parted in swaths over them. Surely the Germans might see the
turtles' heads as they were raised to look around. No officer can be
too young and supple for this kind of work. Here the company officer
just out of school is in his element, with an advantage over older
officers. That pair were used to crawling. They did not keep their
heads up long. They knew just how far they might expose
themselves. They passed out of sight, and reappeared and slipped
back over the parapet again without the Germans being any the
wiser. Hard luck! It is an unaccommodating world! They found that
the patrol which had examined the bags at night had failed to discern
that they were old and must have been there for some time.

"I'll take the machine-gun out, anyhow, if the colonel will permit it,"
said J------. For the colonel puts on the brakes. Otherwise, there is no
telling what risks youth might take with machine-guns.

We were half through dinner when a corporal came to report that a
soldier