turning when
a Hun "crump" came tearing overhead. I yelled out to my man to take
cover, and crushed into the entrance of a dug-out myself. In doing so, I
upset a canteen of tea over a bucket-fire which one of our lads was
preparing to drink. His remarks were drowned in the explosion of the
shell, which landed barely twenty-five feet away.

"Now then," I called to my man, "run for it into King Street," and I got
there just in time to crouch down and escape another "crump" which came
hurtling over. In a flash I knew it was coming very near: I crouched
lower. It burst with a sickening sound. It seemed just overhead. Dirt
and rubble poured over me as I lay there. I rushed to the corner to see
where it had struck. It had landed only twelve feet from the dug-out
entrance which I had left only a few seconds before, and it had killed
the two men whom I had crushed against, and for the loss of whose tea I
was responsible.

It was not the time or place to hang about, so I hurried to the
trench-mortar pit to finish my scenes whilst daylight lasted.

I met the officer in charge of the T.M.

"Keep your head down," he shouted, as I turned round a traverse. "Our
parapet has been practically wiped out, and there is a sniper in the far
corner of the village. He has been dropping his pellets into my show
all day, and Fritz has been splashing me with his 'Minnies' to try and
find my gun, but he will never get it. Just look at the mess around."

I was looking. It would have beaten the finest Indian scout to try and
distinguish the trench from the debris and honeycomb of shell-holes.

"Where the deuce is your outfit?" I said, looking round.

"You follow me, but don't show an inch of head above. Look out."
Phut-bang came a pip-squeak. It struck and burst about five yards in
front of us. "Brother Fritz is confoundedly inconsiderate," he said. "He
seems to want all the earth to himself. Come on; we'll get there this
time, and run for it."

After clambering, crawling, running and jumping, we reached a hole in
the ground, into which the head and shoulders of a man were just
disappearing.

"This is my abode of love," said my guide. "How do you like it?"

I looked down, and at the depth of about twelve feet was a trench
mortar. The hole itself was, of course, boarded round with timber, and
was about seven feet square. There was a gallery leading back under our
parapet for the distance of about eighty feet, and in this were stored
the