and the trilithons on Salisbury Plain are not more desolate.

XXIX

THE FRONT ONCE MORE

A witty subaltern once described the present war as a period of long
boredom punctuated by moments of intense fear. All men would emphasise
the boredom, and most men would admit the fear. The only soldiers I ever
met who affected to know nothing of the fear were Afridis, and the
Afridi is notoriously a ravisher of truth. But the predominant
feeling--in the winter months at any rate--was the boredom. There was a
time when some units, owing to the lack of reserves, were only relieved
once every three weeks, and time hung heavy on their hands. Under these
circumstances they began to take something more than a professional
interest in their neighbours opposite. The curiosity was reciprocated.
Items of news, more or less mendacious, were exchanged when the trenches
were near enough to permit of vocal intercourse. Curious conventions
grew up, and at certain hours of the day and, less commonly, of the
night, there was a kind of informal armistice. In one section the hour
of 8 to 9 A.M. was regarded as consecrated to "private business," and
certain places indicated by a flag were regarded as out of bounds by the
snipers on both sides. On many occasions working parties toiled with
pick and shovel within talking distance of one another, and, although it
was, of course, never safe to presume upon immunity, they usually
forbore to interfere with one another. The Bedfords and the South
Staffords worked in broad daylight with their bodies half exposed above
the trenches, raising the parapet as the water rose. About 200 yards
away the Germans were doing the same. Neither side interfered with the
navvy-work of the other, and for the simplest of all reasons: both were
engaged in fighting a common foe--the underground springs. When two
parties are both in danger of being drowned they haven't time to fight.
To speak of drowning is no hyperbole; the mud of Flanders in winter is
in some places like a quicksand, and men have been sucked under beyond
redemption. A common misery begat a mutual forbearance.

It was under such circumstances that the following exchange of
pleasantries took place. The men of a certain British regiment heard at
intervals a monologue going on in the trenches opposite, and every time
the speaker stopped his discourse shouts of guttural laughter arose,
accompanied by cries of "Bravo, Mueller!" "Sehr komisch!" "Noch einm