in billets, it was whispered upon the _pave_,
that for the officer taking over B116 there was a great wiring toward.
The officer taking over B116 hated wiring worse than bully beef. He said
you either die of pneumonia through standing still pretending to
supervise, or tire yourself to bits and earn the undying contempt of
your party by pretending to take an active share in the game.

Howbeit he took over B116 and was told by the Next Man Up to wire to his
heart's content. He asked the Next Man Up just where he wanted the
wiring to be performed. The Next Man Up waved an airy arm in the
direction of the Hun, and observed, "Out there, of course. Think we
wanted you to wire Hampstead Heath?" Then the B116 officer took the
N.M.U. to the parapet and showed him waving acres of high wire, low
wire, loose wire, tight wire, thick wire, thin wire, two ply, three ply,
and four ply, plain and barbed, running out and out into the dusk.

The N.M.U. gave it all a dispassionate sort of look, and merely said,
"Oh, go out in front of all that. The Bosch is miles off just here."

Now B116 is a front line trench in a re-entrant. The Hun trench facing
it is also in a re-entrant, the original front lines on both sides
having been crumpled and flooded out of existence. So when night fell
the officer of B116 took his party and set out, and he went on and on,
and then on, and there was still wire. And he went on and on and on. And
there were bits of old trenches and saps and listening posts, but still
wire. And he went on and on and there were more bits of trench and more
wire. And he went on and on--and I know this is true because he told
me--and on and on until (no, he did not come back to our own trench, he
had a compass) an exceptionally good lot of fireworks went up, and he
was fired at and bombed by Germans behind and Germans in front and
Germans on either side, and, mind you, he was still in the wire. So he
waited until all the Germans appeared to have killed each other or gone
to sleep, and brought his party laboriously back to B116, from which he
sent to the Next Man Up a message which ran: "If you want me to wire
Bosch third line, kindly arrange for artillery preparation."

It is some days now since they put up any wire in front of B116.

It is a fact well known to all our most widely-circulated photographic
dailies that these German gunners waste a power of ammunition. The only
criticism I have to make is that I wish they would was