rrugated iron roofs; no floorboards. They were just
holes in the clay side of the fire trench, with any old thing for a
roof, and old straw or tobacco leaves, which we pinched from some
abandoned farm, for a floor. So, you see, there was not much of a chance
of dodging the moisture.

The cold was what got me. Personally, I would far rather have gone
without food than a fire. A fire of some sort was the only thing to
cheer. Coke was scarce and always wet, and it was by no means uncommon
to over-hear a remark of this sort: "Chuck us the biscuits, Bill; the
fire wants mendin'."

At night I would frequently sally forth to a cracked up village behind,
and perhaps procure half a mantelpiece and an old clog to stoke our
"furnace" with.

Well, after the usual number of long days and still longer nights spent
under these conditions, we came to the day when it was our turn to go
out to rest billets, and a relieving battalion to come in. What a
splendid day that is! You start "packing" at about 4 p.m. As soon as it
is dusk the servants slink off across that turnip morass behind and drag
our few belongings back to where the limbers are. These limbers have
come up from about three to four miles away, from the Regimental
Transport headquarters, to take all the trench "props" back to the
billets.

We don't leave, ourselves, until the "incoming" battalion has taken
over.

[Illustration: soldier at rest]

After what seems an interminable wait, we hear a clinking of mess tins
and rattling of equipment, the sloshing of feet in the mud, and much
whispered profanity, which all goes to announce to you that "they're
here!" Then you know that the other battalion has arrived, and are now
about to take over these precious slots in the ground.

When the exchange is complete, we are free to go!--to go out for our few
days in billets!

The actual going out and getting clear of the trenches takes a long
time. Handing over, and finally extricating ourselves from the morass,
in the dark, with all our belongings, is a lengthy process; and then we
have about a mile of country which we have never been able to examine in
the day time, and get familiar with, to negotiate. This is before we get
to the high road, and really start for billets.

I had the different machine-gun sections to collect from their various
guns, and this not until the relieving sections had all turned up. It
was a good two hours' job getting all the sections with their gun