the firing-benches, shooting over the top of the
parapet. Fritz and Hans were true sportsmen while the fun was on, and did
not once fire at us. Then the dummy was taken down, and we returned to
the more serious game of war with the old deadly earnestness. I recall
such incidents with joy as I remember certain happy events in childhood.
We needed these trivial occurrences to keep us sane and human. There were
not many of them, but such as there were, we talked of for days and weeks
afterward.

As for the matter of keeping out of sight, there was a good deal to be
said on both sides. Although Tommy was impatient with his prudent enemy
and sang songs, twitting him about always keeping under cover, he did not
usually forget, in the daytime at least, to make his own observations of
the German line with caution. Telescopic sights have made the business of
sniping an exact science. They magnify the object aimed at many
diameters, and if it remains in view long enough to permit the pulling of
a trigger, the chances of a hit are almost one hundred per cent.

II. "THE BUTT-NOTCHER"

Snipers have a roving commission. They move from one part of the line to
another, sometimes firing from carefully concealed loopholes in the
parapet, sometimes from snipers' nests in trees or hedges. Often they
creep out into the tall grass of No-Man's-Land. There, with a plentiful
supply of food and ammunition, they remain for a day or two at a time,
lying in wait for victims. It was a cold-blooded business, and hateful to
some of the men. With others, the passion for it grew. They kept tally of
their victims by cutting notches on the butts of their rifles.

I well remember the pleasant June day when I first met a "butt-notcher."
I was going for water, to an old farmhouse about half a mile from our
sector of trench. It was a day of bright sunshine. Poppies and buttercups
had taken root in the banks of earth heaped up on either side of the
communication trench. They were nodding their heads as gayly in the
breeze as of old did Wordsworth's daffodils in the quiet countryside at
Rydal Mount. It was a joy to see them there, reminding one that God was
still in his heaven, whatever might be wrong with the world. It was a joy
to be alive, a joy which one could share unselfishly with friend and
enemy alike. The colossal stupidity of war was never more apparent to me
than upon that day. I hated my job, and if I hated any man, it was the
one who had inve