cheerful as ever, in spite of the stifling
atmosphere, which must have been breathed by human lungs over and over
again. It was quite late when I stretched myself on my wire mattress
with my steel helmet for a pillow. Only a piece of canvas separated me
from the room where a lot of men were supposed to be sleeping. They
were not only not asleep but kept me awake by the roars of laughter
which greeted the stories they were telling. However, I managed to
doze off in time, and was rudely wakened early in the morning by the
metallic thud of pineapples on the ground overhead. I was wondering
what it meant when a man came down to the O.C.'s room, next to mine,
and aroused him with the somewhat exciting news, "Major, the Germans
are making an attack." It was not long before the Major was hurrying
up the steps to the passage above, and it was not long before I
followed, because I always had a horror of being bombed in a dugout.
In the passage upstairs all the men were "standing to" with fixed
bayonets, and plenty of Mills bombs in their pockets. They were a most
cheerful crowd, and really I think that we all felt quite pleased at
the excitement. A man came up to me and asked me what weapon I (p. 238)
had. I told him I had a fixed bayonet on the end of my walking stick.
This did not seem to satisfy him, so he went over to a cupboard and
brought me two bombs. I told him to take them away because they might
be prematures. He laughed at this and said, "How will you protect
yourself, Sir, if the enemy should get into the trench?" I told him I
would recite one of my poems. They always put my friends to flight and
would probably have the same effect upon my foes.

By this time the rain of pineapples overhead was very heavy, and I
went to the door of the dugout where the Major was looking out. It was
a curious scene. Day had just dawned, and we could see the heaps of
broken rubbish and ripped up ground in front of us, while directly
opposite at the top of the chalk-pit was our front line. Pacing up and
down this was a corporal, his form silhouetted against the gray
morning sky. He had his rifle with fixed bayonet on his shoulder, and
as he walked to and fro he sang at the top of his voice the old song,
"Oh my, I don't want to die, I want to go home." The accompaniment to
the song was the "swish" of the shells overhead and the bursting of
them in the trenches behind. I told the Major that if we could only
get a moving picture of th