feet deep. The largest shell hole I
have ever seen was over twenty feet in diameter and about twelve feet
deep. The largest hole I have seen, made by an implement of war, though
not by a gun or a howitzer, was larger still, and its size was colossal.
I refer to a hole made by one of our trench mortars, but regret that I
did not measure it. Round about our farm were a series of holes of
immense size, showing clearly the odium which that farm had incurred,
and was incurring; but, whilst I was in it, nothing came in through the
roof or walls. I have since learnt that that old farm is no more, having
been shelled out of existence. All my sketches on those plaster walls
form part of a slack heap, surrounded by a moat.

Well, this persistent shelling of the left-hand end of our trenches
meant a persistent readjustment of our parapets, and putting things back
again. Each morning the Boches would knock things down, and each evening
we would put them up again. Our soldiers are only amused by this
procedure. Their humorously cynical outlook at the Boche temper renders
them impervious to anything the Germans can ever do or think of. Their
outlook towards a venomous German attempt to do something "frightfully"
nasty, is very similar to a large and powerful nurse dealing with a
fractious child--sort of: "Now, then, Master Frankie, you mustn't kick
and scream like that."

One can almost see a group of stolid, unimaginative, non-humorous
Germans, taking all things with their ridiculous seriousness, sending
off their shells, and pulling hateful faces at the same time. You can
see our men sending over a real stiff, quietening answer, with a
sporting twinkle in the eye, perhaps jokingly remarking, as a shell is
pushed into the gun, "'Ere's one for their Officers' Mess, Bert."

On several evenings I had to go round and arrange for the reconstruction
of the ruined parapet or squashed-in dug-outs. It was during one of
these little episodes that I felt the spirit of my drawing, "There goes
our blinking parapet again," which I did sometime later. I never went
about looking for ideas for drawings; the whole business of the war
seemed to come before me in a series of pictures. Jokes used to stick
out of all the horrible discomfort, something like the points of a
harrow would stick into you if you slept on it.

I used to visit all the trenches, and look up the various company
commanders and platoon commanders in the same way as I did at St. Y