t, which had to be done gingerly because of snipers, bringing our
food in from the rear in big carriers, getting water, pushing our trench
out from an angle slantingways forward. Getting meals, clearing up and
so on takes a lot of time. We make tea in big kettles in the big
dug-out, which two whole companies use for their cooking, and carry them
with a pole through the handles to our platoons. We wash up and wash and
shave. Dinner preparation (and consumption) takes two or three hours.
Tea too uses up time. It's like camping out and picnicking in the park.
This first time (and next too) we have been mixed with some Sussex men
who have been here longer and know the business.... It works out that we
do most of the fatigue. Afterwards we shall go up alone to a pitch of
our own....

"But all the time you want to know about the Germans. They are a quarter
of a mile away at this part, or nearly a quarter of a mile. When you
snatch a peep at them it is like a low parti-coloured stone wall--only
the stones are sandbags. The Germans have them black and white, so that
you cannot tell which are loopholes and which are black bags. Our people
haven't been so clever--and the War Office love of uniformity has given
us only white bags. No doubt it looks neater. But it makes our loopholes
plain. For a time black sandbags were refused. The Germans sniped at us,
but not very much. Only one of our lot was hit, by a chance shot that
came through the sandbag at the top of the parapet. He just had a cut in
the neck which didn't prevent his walking back. They shelled the
trenches half a mile to the left of us though, and it looked pretty hot.
The sandbags flew about. But the men lie low, and it looks worse than it
is. The weather was fine and pleasant, as General French always says.
And after three days and nights of cramped existence and petty chores,
one in the foremost trench and two a little way back, and then two days
in support, we came back--and here we are again waiting for our second
Go.

"The night time is perhaps a little more nervy than the day. You get
your head up and look about, and see the flat dim country with its
ruined houses and its lumps of stuff that are dead bodies and its long
vague lines of sandbags, and the searchlights going like white windmill
arms and an occasional flare or star shell. And you have a nasty feeling
of people creeping and creeping all night between the trenches....

"Some of us went out to strength