a minute," I said, "the trench had
been blown in about fifty yards down, wouldn't it be better to clear it
away rather than take these men over the top?"

The officer decided that it was. The men worked away with a will, and
quickly replaced the earth in the hollow of the trench wall from which
it had been blown.

Again we trudged on. The flies were beginning to annoy us once more. I
put on a couple of cigarettes. All the men had ransacked odds and ends
from their pockets, and the result was a line of men smoking as hard as
they could, and enveloped in a haze of bluish white smoke. But the flies
refused to budge. Smoke had no effect on them, and I'm inclined to think
that nothing short of a 5.9 would do the trick. Not until we were out in
the open were we free from them.

On two further occasions I tried to enter Trones Wood, and both times
the conditions were if anything worse. The merest sign of a camera put
up over a parapet would have instantly brought a host of shells
clattering round; therefore, on the third try, I decided to abandon the
trip until a later date. But those attempts will always remain in my
memory as a ghastly nightmare. The essence of death and destruction, and
all that it means, was horribly visible everywhere.

I have been there since. I reached the place just before the final
cleansing, and brother Fritz, just to let us know that he existed, and
that he had a spite against us, persisted in flinging his shrapnel
around, thereby keeping me well on the run. He did not give me the
slightest chance to get pictures, nor to meditate on the surroundings;
in fact the only meditation I indulged in was to wonder whether the next
shrapnel bullet would strike my helmet plumb on the top or glance off
the rim. Then thinking of George Grave's remark, I called Fritz a "nasty
person," with a few extra additions culled from the "trench dictionary."

Being a fine night I decided to stay in the vicinity. An officer of a
pioneer battalion kindly offered me a share of his dug-out--one of
Fritz's cast-offs. I gladly accepted, and over a cup--or rather a
tin--of tea, we exchanged views on various subjects. About ten o'clock I
went above to terra firma and watched the shells bursting over the
German lines. Myriads of star-shells or Verey lights shot high in the
sky, lighting up the whole country-side like day. The sight was
wonderful, and silhouetted against the flashes I could see countless
bodies of men tramping