Dick's." The picture of "Dirty Dick's" gives a rough idea of
the devastation of war. The portion of a building to the right was all
that remained of what, but a few weeks before, had been a handsome and
prosperous hotel, and the wall with window and door spaces left, shown
to the left, had been the residence of a prominent citizen. All that was
left of the hotel was a shaky wall, though the sign-board remained,
having escaped the enemy's fire.

We were placed in the trench shown in the foreground, and the Germans
were also entrenched in the space seen in the distance between the
ruins. When we first took up our position the hotel was intact except
that the roof had been destroyed. The wall towards our trench was
standing, and when it fell the bricks came tumbling over us, and the
dust of the red masonry turned us into copper-coloured men. But prior to
this three "Jocks" and three of our own regiment crawled out of the
trench and into the house, and we spotted a piano on the ground floor.
The temptation was too great; we decided to remove it. The operation
took us two and a half hours' hard struggle. Eventually we got the
instrument into our trench, somewhat battered about and minus one leg,
but still answering to the keyboard. Unfortunately two of the party were
wounded in doing this, but they didn't mind. Night after night we had
sing-songs accompanied on the piano in proper style, and used to give
forth with the full strength of our lungs--

"The Germans are coming--
Hurrah! Hurrah!"

The "harmony" of this stunt used to be wafted on the silent night air to
the German trenches, and we soon saw how it upset Fritz and Karl. They
got so annoyed that they trained their artillery in the direction of
the sounds, and used to shell us all along the line in the hope of
silencing our concerts. However, they could never quite locate the exact
spot in which the instrument was temporarily placed.

[Illustration: "ENTRENCHING" THE PIANO.]

One night, while one of our concerts was at its height, the officers
even joining in, the order came to advance. So we had to bid a hasty
farewell to our much-prized "Johanna," which had given us so much
pleasure.

"SEVENTY-FIVE HOTEL."

[Illustration: SEVENTY-FIVE HOTEL.]

Now I think of it, there was another ex-"pub" where we touched lucky in
the matter of finding things--though they didn't include a piano. This
was "Seventy-five Hotel." We called it that because the enemy