struggled through to the end of the chorus--and I think I sang
pretty badly, although I don't know. But I was pretty sure the end of
the world had come for me, and that these laddies were taking things
as calmly as they were simply because they were used to it, and it
was all in the day's work for them. The Germans were fairly sluicing
that trench by now. The whizz bangs were popping over us like giant
fire-crackers, going off one and two and three at a time. And the
trench was full of flying slugs and chunks of dirt, striking against
our faces and hurtling all about us.

There I was. I had a good "house." I wanted to please my audience.
Was it no a trying situation? I thought Fritz might have had manners
enough to wait until I had finished my concert, at least! But the Hun
has no manners, as all the world knows.

Along that embankment we had climbed to reach the trenches, and not
very far from the bit of trench in which I was singing, there was a
railroad bridge of some strategic importance. And now a shell hit
that bridge--not a whizz bang, but a real, big shell. It exploded
with a hideous screech, as if the bridge were some human thing being
struck, and screaming out its agony. The soldiers looked at me, and I
saw some of them winking. They seemed to be mighty interested in the
way I was taking all this. I looked back at them, and then at a
Highland colonel who was listening to my singing as quietly and as
carefully as if he had been at a stall in Covent Garden during the
opera season. He caught my glance.

"I think they're coming it a bit thick, Lauder, old chap," he
remarked, quietly.

"I quite agree with you, colonel," I said. I tried to ape his voice
and manner, but I wasn't so quiet as he.

Now there came a ripping, tearing sound in the air, and a veritable
cloudburst of the damnable whizz bangs broke over us. That settled
matters. There were no orders, but everyone turned, just as if it
were a meeting, and a motion to adjourn had been put and carried
unanimously. We all ran for the safety holes or dugouts in the side
of the embankment. And I can tell ye that the Reverend Harry Lauder,
M.P., Tour were no the last ones to reach those shelters! No, we were
by no means the last!

I ha' no doot that I might have improved upon the shelter that I
found, had I had time to pick and choose. But any shelter was good
just then, and I was glad of mine, and of a chance to catch my
breath. Afterward, I saw a picture