our front for the few hours necessary for us to "shake down" in
the new position. Their task was to remain behind and to give a
continuous rapid-fire from as many different spots as possible in a
given time, thereby keeping up the illusion of a heavily manned
trench. Then, they too had faded quietly away, following us.

Our new trenches were three miles behind those we had just evacuated
in Polygon Wood. Zillebeke lay just to the left and beyond that,
Hooge. We were in the open, with Belle-waarde Wood and Lake behind us.

We continued to face vastly superior forces. To make matters worse the
trenches were assuredly a mockery of their kind and there was even
less of adequate support than before. And at that the drafts arrived
each day--if they were lucky enough to break through the curtains of
fire with which the enemy covered our rear for that very purpose, as
well as for the further one of curtailing the arrival of all necessary
supplies of food and ammunition.

Every camp and hospital from Ypres to Rouen and the sea and from
Land's End to John O' Groat was combed and scraped for every eligible
casualty, every overconfident office holder of a "cushy" job, and in
short, for all those who could by hook or crook hold a rifle to help
stem this threatening tide. And in our own lot, even those wasteful
luxuries, the petted officers' servants were amongst us, doing
fighting duty for the first time, so that we almost welcomed the
desperate occasion which furnished so rare and sweet a sight.

CHAPTER II

THE FOURTH OF MAY

The Unofficial Armistice--The Clash of the Scouts--"Sticking It"
on the Fourth.

We suffered cruelly on the Fourth. The dawn had discovered two long
lines of men, madly digging in plain sight of one another. There was
no firing except that one little storm when the stronger light had
shown our rear guard ridiculously tangled up with a screen of German
scouts so that some of each were nearer to foe than to friend and so
had foes on either side. They shot at one another. Some of us in our
excitement shot at both, scarce able to distinguish one from the
other. Others amongst us strove to knock their rifles up. And the
Germans in their trenches shot too. Both of us of the main bodies
continued to respect the tacit truce imposed by the conditions under
which we found ourselves, insofar as we ourselves were concerned, and
fired only at the poor fellows in between.

As for them, I fear the abs