. I
struck for bed just as dawn broke.

-------------------------------------

To-day the guns are again "hating" the chateau, and they have put sixty
shells in the neighborhood. Still, "there's no cloud without a silver
lining." I've got a new way home. Instead of going right around the
kennels, stables, and through the yards, I go "through" the greenhouse
direct, thereby saving a lot of time. The Huns' calendar is wrong. They
have always shelled me Sunday and Wednesday. To-day's Tuesday!

We use up the window frames and doorways for kindling, and consequently
the doors have gone long ago. I have been smashing up mouldings this
morning with an axe. We prefer the dry wood which is built into the walls;
it burns better and doesn't cause smoke. As soon as smoke is seen rising,
the enemy's range-finders get busy and then we suffer.

Another mine went up yesterday; nobody seems to know where. I think it
came south from the French lines; it rocked the whole neighborhood for
miles. The ground here is a kind of quicksand for a few feet down, and
shock is easily transmitted, the whole ground being honeycombed with
mines, old trenches, shafts, saps made by French, Belgians, Germans and
our own people.

The use for timber of any description is manifold; every little bit is
used up. Our chief source of supply of dry wood is from the smashed-up
chateaux. Langhof, my home, has been punished almost every day, and after
the bombardment lets up men from the neighborhood come to collect the wood
torn up by the shelling. The men of the Tenth East Yorks came up this
morning and climbed to the remains of the second story, ripping up the
floor boards. The enemy evidently saw them, for the shelling soon started.
We have been shelled often here before, but it was nothing compared to
this. The shells were carefully placed and came over with disgusting
regularity. The buildings rocked and the whole neighborhood shook.
Fountains of bricks, mortar, and dirt were spewed up into the air. Trees
were torn to shreds, a wall in front of me was hit--and disappeared, a lead
statue of Apollo in the garden was hurled through the air and landed fifty
yards away crumpled up against the balustrade of the moat.

We were in our cellars, and gradually the shelling crept up towards us.
Slowly a solemn dread which soon moulded into a sordid fear took
possession of my being. In a flash I began to devise a philosophy of death
for my chances w