ire. It has to be repaired every night. The
German trenches are about 70 yards away in some places and as much as
400 in others. It is rather exciting wandering about in front of the
line, as lights go up every now and then and show a bright white light
in the air for a minute or two like a rocket. When one goes up you
fall flat and pretend you are a sandbag or a milk-can or a rat. You
may meet Fritz on the same job sometimes; I always have a bomb handy
to give him a brotherly welcome.

Well, I arose at 11-0, washed myself, and messed about, sent down for
rations and sandbags, &c. The German artillery is just firing, or
perhaps it is our own. You hear a bang and then a buzz over your head
a long way up. They are probably firing at something a good way back.
Rather bad form to fire at night time, I think; I hope no one sends
for me to do a little straffing. Having arisen at the early hour I
mentioned I nosed round and noticed some of the wretched Germans were
having the cheek to work by day time, throwing earth out of their
trenches. You could see on the snow on the parapet, so I sent them
four rounds with my compliments and they then saw their mistake and
stopped. I then watched their return of compliments with a battery of
field guns; they were quite cruel to a small bush a hundred yards
behind our line. I thought it rather a funny object to vent their
spleen on. Yesterday I inspected the whole of the brigade trenches to
see where I could make myself unpleasant to Fritz, and to-day we
started making a beautiful emplacement in the salient. I messed as a
visitor with "B" Company to-night, and so to bed. To-day it is
Thursday, I think. Yesterday I had a very exciting day, rather too
exciting in parts. I got up at 8-30 in time for breakfast, and went
down to see the second in command of the Scots, and stayed at
headquarters for lunch. In the afternoon we worked on another
emplacement and got it nearly finished. We have to be continually
working on the trenches--that is, the Infantry have to. My men do some
work every day making emplacements, as those already in the trench do
not come up to my standard at all, and we need a lot more to move the
guns about. The life is either rather too exciting or ideal. It is
usually a sort of picnic; at least, for the battery. We can't do any
firing as I have not got my own ammunition at present. The men get up
at any old time, they brew tea most of the day. In the morning they
don't do