ning and nauseous.

A week passed away and we were still in the trenches. Sometimes it
rained, but for the most part the sky was clear and the sun very hot.
The trenches were dug out of the chalk, the world in which we lived
was a world of white and green, white parapet and parados with a (p. 243)
fringe of grass on the superior slope of each. The place was very
quiet, not more than two dozen shells came our way daily, and it was
there that I saw a shell in air, the only shell in flight I have ever
seen. It was dropping to earth behind the parados and I had a distinct
view of the missile before ducking to avoid the splinters flung out by
the explosion. Hundreds of shells have passed through the sky near me
every day, I could almost see them by their sound and felt I could
trace the line made by them in their flight, but this was the only
time I ever saw one.

The hill land of Lorette stood up sullen on our right; in a basin
scooped out on its face, a hollow not more than five hundred yards
square we could see, night and day, an eternal artillery conflict in
progress, in the daylight by the smoke and in the dark by the flashes
of bursting shells. It was an awe-inspiring and wonderful picture this
titanic struggle; when I looked on it, I felt that it was not good to
see--it was the face of a god. The mortal who gazed on it must die.
But by night and day I spent most of my spare time in watching the
smoke of bursting shells and the flash of innumerable explosions.

One morning, after six days in the trenches, I was seated on the (p. 244)
parados blowing up an air pillow which had been sent to me by an
English friend and watching the fight up at Souchez when Bill came up
to me.

"Wot's that yer've got?" he asked.

"An air pillow," I answered.

"'Ow much were yer rushed for it?"

"Somebody sent it to me," I said.

"To rest yer weary 'ead on?"

I nodded.

"I like a fresh piller every night," said Bill.

"A fresh what?"

"A fresh brick."

"How do you like these trenches?" I asked after a short silence.

"Not much," he answered. "They're all blurry flies and chalk." He
gazed ruefully at the white sandbags and an army ration of cheese
rolled up in a paper on which blow-flies were congregating. Chalk was
all over the place, the dug-outs were dug out of chalk, the sandbags
were filled with chalk, every bullet, bomb and shell whirled showers
of fine powdery chalk into the air, chalk frittered away from the
p