um of shrapnel pieces flying around--all this made
up a pandemonium of noise. My further progress along this road
was barred by a thud amongst some ruined houses about a hundred
yards in front of me, showing that the "strafe" was veering round
to my direction. Deviating from this road I met some old
acquaintances in the Gunners, and had tea with them in their
dug-out, my horse being put up in what in pre-war days had been
somebody's sitting-room. I cantered home at dusk. All this
evening there has been a "hate" on--the sky alive with
gun-flashes and lit up by star-shells, and the air resounding
with bangings and thuddings.

_February 1st, 1916._

Hereabouts we seem now to be doing ten times as much "strafing"
as the Boches. This afternoon I saw at fifty yards' distance some
60-pounders (the old "Long-Toms") being fired. First, there would
come a flash of flame from the muzzle, followed by an
ear-splitting bang. Then the whole gun seemed to hurl itself
bodily forward and slide back into position again. Meanwhile you
could hear the shell tearing its way through the air with the
curious shuddering, or fluttering, noise that shells make in
transit.

Riding north the other day I came to a place where the only
sounds that could be heard were the intermittent crackle of
rifle-fire mingling with the shrill tones of a woman haggling
over the price of bread with an old chap who had driven out with
his pony and cart from an adjacent town to sell his goods. The
roof of the woman's house had mostly vanished and some of the
walls were non-existent, being replaced by sandbags. A notice
proclaimed that there was coffee and milk for sale within. Is it
not extraordinary to encounter this sort of thing right up in the
battle zone? It shows how human nature can adapt itself to the
most uncustomary things. I suppose we should be the same--stick
to the old home so long as there was a brick left standing.

I ran across an O.A., named Tatnell, who holds a commission in
the Motor Machine Gun Corps. He told me he had met lots of O.A.s
out here. Some of the fellows he mentioned are mere boys of
seventeen and eighteen still. One of them, Williams, I remember
last year as a drummer in the Corps. Honestly, the old school ha