trench mortar man and his gun, and twenty-five high explosive
shells plunged around us and shook our trench out of existence. It was
very fascinating to watch these shells coming. From the point, high in
the air, when they started to drop on their target they could be clearly
seen, first as a black ball, then gradually lengthening out till they
plunged into the ground and flung up dense fountains of earth and
fragments.

The nearest burst was within ten feet of the trench mortar position, and
the officer withdrew his party, a sadder and a wiser man.

From the rifle grenades, too, we lost both of our mining officers, one,
Lieutenant Alfred Evans, dying of wounds, the other being very severely
wounded. So two merry souls who had shared the vicissitudes of our
messing passed from our ken, and we could only wait our own fate and
say, like the French, "C'est la guerre!"

[Illustration: APPROXIMATE GERMAN LINE IN FRONT OF MESSINES DURING
WINTER OF 1915-1916.

(Successive positions held by 1st Brigade shown 1, 2, 3.)]

CHAPTER XXII

THE WINTER MONTHS

November brought with it a week of steady rain, and we knew the winter
months were at hand. In less than two weeks our trenches, once the pride
of the division, were a series of collapsed heaps where the sandbag
walls had been undermined by the seepage of water.

But we suffered nothing like the discomforts endured by the British
troops during the previous winter. Rubber boots reaching to the thigh
were issued, sparingly at first, but gradually until every man had a
pair, and whale oil and spare socks were available in large quantities
to aid in the fight against trench-foot. Nothing, however, could prevent
the mud, which lay a foot deep along the gangways of the trench. Pumps
were issued, but the mud was too thick to pump; our only hope lay in
drainage, and by the time proper drains were constructed the mud was too
thick to run, even though we were on a hill top.

[Illustration: AFTER A FEW SHELLS AND A WEEK'S RAIN.]

So we pumped and drained and built new sandbag walls all winter, and as
fast as one portion of our line was renewed another portion would
collapse, or, more disheartening still, be shelled to bits by the big
"minenwerfer."

This was a German gun brought up to this front to counteract our trench
mortar. Throwing a shell about six inches in diameter of high explosive,
it could in three bursts do more damage than a whole company could
repair in