n't
aim at night and the bullets mostly go high. At last day dawned, and
we were quite surprised to find that nothing had happened; Scottie and
I had our breakfast,--the cook cooked it, and it was distributed in the
trench,--then we were put on sentry to watch through the periscope,
while the rest had a sleep. We were sitting there talking things over
when we heard a roaring noise overhead, and a bing-bang! in the town
which lay behind our trenches. We thought it was aeroplanes dropping
bombs, and Scottie and I looked for them but we couldn't see anything.
At last an officer came along and we asked him. "Oh yes," said he,
"those are German shells." Well, after a few days in the trenches we
went back to a place called L---- for a rest, or rather we were in
reserve. We were now in what was known as the Kemmel Shelters; here we
turned night into day--we slept or did nothing in the daytime, but at
night we worked like bees--we were busy on fatigue parties carrying up
ammunition and provisions to the front lines. Now, don't run off with
the idea that this is a bomb-proof job; Fritzie knows all about the
supplies that must be brought up, and you can bet your sweet life that
he takes a delight in picking off rationing parties, and such-like.
Every night our supports were heavily shelled; every road leading to
the lines had a battery trained on it and every little while it was
swept by shrapnel. We gradually got used to the danger, and if they
started to shell the road we were on we would flop into a ditch or
shell hole till the storm had passed. Speaking of this reminds me of
something that happened in that first week. A party of us were
carrying coke to the front line, and we had two sacks each; I had mine
tied together and hung around my neck (the way I wore my red mittens
when I was a youngster). We walked single file, and the boy ahead
called back, "Shell hole, keep to the right," but it was too late for
me, one foot had gone in and the weight of the coke made me lose my
balance, so in I plunged head first; there was four feet of water in
that hole, to say nothing of the soft juicy mud at the bottom, and I
gurgled and gasped and was almost drowned before I could free myself
from the coke. Finally I struggled out, and without waiting to recover
my cargo I made a bee-line for my billet--the boys were fairly killing
themselves laughing, and I don't blame them _now_, for I must have been
a pretty-looking bird; I was