to have it, the thing
obviously to do is to try and defend yourself; so the next time, up we
started.

CHAPTER XII

A BRAIN WAVE--MAKING A "FUNK HOLE"
--PLUGSTREET WOOD--SNIPING

On arriving up at St. Yvon for our third time round there, we--as usual
now--went into our cottage again, and the regiment spread itself out
around the same old trenches. There was always a lot of work for me to
do at nights, as machine guns always have to be moved as occasion
arises, or if one gets a better idea for their position. By this time I
had one gun in the remnant of a house about fifty yards away from our
cottage. This was a reserve gun, and was there carrying out an idea of
mine, _i.e._, that it was in a central position, which would enable it
to be rapidly moved to any threatened part of the line, and also it
would form a bit of an asset in the event of our having to defend the
village.

The section for this gun lived in the old cellar close by, and it was
this cellar which gave me an idea. When I went into our cottage I
searched to see if we had overlooked a cellar. No, there wasn't one.
Now, then, the idea. I thought, "Why not make a cellar, and thus have a
place to dive into when the strafing begins." After this terrific
outburst of sagacity I sat down in a corner and, with a biscuitload of
jam, discussed my scheme with my platoon-commander pal. We agreed it was
a good idea. I was feeling energetic, and always liking a little
tinkering on my own, I said I would make it myself.

So Hudson retired into the lean-to and I commenced to plot this
engineering project. I scraped away as much as necessary of the
accumulated filth on the floor, and my knife striking something hard I
found it to be tiles. Up till then I had always imagined it to be an
earth floor, but tiled it was right enough--large, square, dark red ones
of a very rough kind. I called for Smith, my servant, and telling him to
bring his entrenching tool, I began to prize up some of the tiles. It
wasn't very easy, fitting the blade of the entrenching tool into the
crevices, but once I had got a start and had got one or two out, things
were easier.

I pulled up all the tiles along one wall about eight feet long and out
into the room a distance of about four feet. I now had a bare patch of
hard earth eight feet by four to contend with. Luckily we had a pickaxe
and a shovel lying out behind the house, so taking off my sheepskin
jacket and balaclava, I started