he size
of an ordinary loaf, will be divided between seven men. With the good
things already enumerated, a plentiful supply of charcoal and coke is
usually to be expected. The horse transports with these provisions never
get nearer than, at the closest, say half-a-mile of the front trench
itself, when the men in charge dump their loads down and get away back
to their stores and billets as quickly as possible. There is a lot to
risk, for as a rule the enemy have the road well set, and the shelling
is often very severe.

It is the duty of a ration party to bring up the loads from where they
have been left. On regaining the opening to the trench, they take the
rations to the quartermaster-sergeant's hut or dug-out. The sergeants of
each platoon come to this hut or dug-out, and to them the things are
delivered in quantities proportionate with the number of men in the
section each represents. The sergeants then send along two men to carry
the whacks to the respective traverses in the trench. This goes on night
after night. So on the occasion I am recalling we were very late--and
the distance we had to go was as much as a mile and three-quarters.

This ration carrying, the final stage of ration transport, is an even
more dangerous and risky job than the preceding stage, and, as usual,
snipers got busy on us, hitting three men, though none was killed. The
rattle of bullets from machine guns on the ricketty sides of the old
cart added to the programme of the night's entertainment, and there were
frequent intervals, not for refreshments, but for getting flat and
waiting.

GATHERING IN OUR FIREWOOD.

Chopping up firewood was regarded not so much as work as it was regarded
as one of our recreations in the trenches--of which I shall have a
little to say presently. But it often happened that there was no
recreation, but only the excitement of danger in the night-time job of
bringing in the firewood for day-time chopping. It would happen that a
man had spotted in some shelled house or fallen farm-building a beam,
plank, door, or something else wooden and burnable, that he couldn't
carry without assistance, or that he couldn't stop to bring away at the
time. It must be fetched, for fire we must have. It might be only a few
score yards away measured by distance, but an hour measured by
time--"thou art so near and yet so far" sort of thing. Fetchers might
get hit at any moment, and had to creep and wriggle very cautiously over
op