ind out how the Boche is getting on with
his new trenches. When he has dug well down and is making himself
comfortable, one of the patrol party reports, 'I think it's deep enough
now, sir'; and there is a raid, and the Australians make themselves at
home in the trench the Boche has sweated to make."

The Australian colonel nodded with pleasure. "Yes, our lot are pretty
good at the cuckoo game," he agreed.

Next morning our shaving operations were enlivened by the swift rush of
three high-velocity shells that seemed to singe the roof of the hut I
was in. They scattered mud, and made holes in the road below. "The
nasty fellow!" ejaculated our new American doctor, hastening outside,
with the active curiosity of the new arrival who has been little under
shell fire, to see where the shells had burst. Our little Philadelphia
medico had gone, a week before, to join the American forces. His
successor was broad-built, choleric, but kind of heart, and came from
Ohio. I suspected the new doctor of a sense of humour, as well as of an
understanding of current smart-set satire. "They kept me at your base
two months," he told me, "but I wanted to see the war. I also heard an
English doctor say he would be glad of a move, as the base was full of
P.U.O. and O.B.E.'s."

After breakfast the colonel and myself passed through the battered
relics of Heilly on our way to the batteries. The rain and the
tremendous traffic of the previous night had churned the streets into
slush, but the feeling that we were on the eve of great events made me
look more towards things of cheer. The sign-board, "--th Division Rest
House," on a tumble-down dwelling ringed round with shell-holes, seemed
over-optimistic, but the intention was good. At the little railway
station a couple of straw-stuffed dummies, side by side on a platform
seat as if waiting for a train, showed that a waggish spirit was
abroad. One figure was made up with a black swallow-tailed coat, blue
trousers, and a bowler hat set at a jaunty angle; the other with a
woman's summer skirt and blouse and an open parasol. B Battery, who had
discovered excellent dug-outs in the railway cutting, reported that
their only trouble was the flies, which were illimitable. A and C had
their own particular note of satisfaction. They were sharing a row of
dug-outs equipped with German wire beds, tables, mirrors, and other
home comforts. "We adopted the Solomon method of division," explained
Major Bullivant.