t about in a maddening manner to make them
safer from shell-fire. Little caves are scooped in the walls of the
trenches, where the men live about four to a hole, and slightly bigger
dugouts where two officers live. All the soil is clay, stickier and
greasier than one could believe possible. It's like almost solid
paint, and the least rain makes the sides of the trenches slimy, and
the bottom a perfect sea of mud--pulls the heels off your boots
almost. One feels like Gulliver walking along a Lilliputian town all
the time. The front line of trenches--the firing line--have scientific
loopholes and lookout places in them for seeing and firing from, and a
dropping fire goes on from both sides all day long, but is very
harmless.

Dec. 3, 1914.--I was just starting for my daily constitutional "on
top" when the enemy began their bombarding, nearly one and a half
hours earlier than usual, so I will postpone my little walk and finish
this instead. Yesterday we had one man killed and two wounded, the
first casualties for over a week. The story of one of the wounded is
worth telling to show you the pluck of these men. He told me he
noticed some new digging going on on the side of the enemy in front
of his firing post. One can see the spadefuls of earth coming up from
below the ground level when new trenches are being dug. Although this
was in broad daylight, our man thought he would go and see what the
Germans were up to, so he hops over the side of his trench and runs
forward thirty yards to a ditch and crawls along it some hundred yards
or so. He then spots a large shell-hole in the field on one side of
the ditch, so doubles off and gets into that and has a good look
around. Not satisfied with the point of view, he sprints to a line of
willows nearer still to the enemy--within 250 yards of them
indeed--and proceeds to climb up one of them. While doing this he gets
shot through the shoulder. He told me he thought he had ricked his arm
at first, as it felt numb and useless. Meanwhile a great pal of his in
the regiment, hearing that he had gone out like this, hops over the
parapet and sets off to look for him, and comes up just as he gets
hit. The second man upbraids the first roundly for being a fool,
carries his rifle for him, and brings him back. All this is done quite
in the day's work and "sub rosa," as they would get punished for
leaving the trench like that in the daytime if it was spotted. The
pluck of these men is perfectl