loose couplings going through the air, are not so
terrible now.

Through a hole in my dugout I can see the Huns' shells Kulturing a
chateau. It was once a very beautiful place with a moat, bridges, and
splendid gardens. Now it's useless except that the timber and the
furniture come in useful for our dugouts and the making of "duck walks,"
the grated walks which line the bottom of the trenches.

Last night I was sitting in the Medical Officer's dugout when a man I knew
came in. He was an officer in the Second Gordons. "I feel pretty bad,
doc." He explained his symptoms. "Trench fever; you go down the line."
"No, fix me up for tonight and maybe I won't need anything else." He
didn't! All that is left of him is being buried now, less than a hundred
yards from where I write this.

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Before I came here I had to go to another part of the line, in which the
"Princess Pats" distinguished themselves. We have been hanging on ever
since, and a mighty stiff proposition it is. The O.C. to-day told me that
he had not slept for fifty-six hours. The Germans in one place are only
twenty-five yards away--so close that conversation is carried on in a
whisper.

In one place they had stuck up a board with "Warsaw Captured" on it.

My section worked until two o'clock and then the sandbags gave out, so we
had to come home. This was a disappointment to me. I wanted to get the job
finished. My men went on filling sandbags from the same place last night
and discovered the remains of the late owner of the sword bayonet. He has
now been decently buried, with a little wooden cross marked--

TO AN UNKNOWN FRENCH SOLDIER
R.I.P.

When you read in the newspapers, that a trench was lost or taken, just
think what it means. Think what happens to the men in the trenches; that's
the part of it we see. Stretchers pass by all day. Since I have been here
the cemetery has grown--a new mound--a simple wooden cross. Nobody talks
about it, but everybody wonders who's next. The men here are splendid, the
best in the world, and the officers are gentlemen.

[Illustration]

A French Soldier.

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We have moved to the famous Langhof Chateau on the Lille road. This is
supposed to have belonged to Hennessey of "Three Star" fame, but the
Germans had been through the wine cellars. W