wn on his face but he
was full of all that strange wisdom of a trenchman who had experienced
the bitter hardships and the heartbreaking losses of a winter in the
cursed salient of St. Eloi, by Shelley Farm and The Mound of Death.
But just now this infant of the trenches had the round eyes of a
startled child, which in him meant mad excitement.

"The C.O.'s hit."

The word slid up the trench: "The C.O.'s hit."

"Strike me! Cawn't this bleedin' regiment keep a bleedin' Colonel----?
That makes two of them!"

"How did it happen?"

"What the devil are we goin' to do?"

"Who says so?"

"The second in six weeks!"

"Parkie."

"By----! This mob's in a Hell of a fix, Bo'."

Park was leaning on his rifle, trench fashion. "Oh, dry up. You give
me a pain."

And then he launched his thunderbolt, "Gault's back."

The chorus of despair became one of wild delight.

"We're jake!" "He'll see us through." "Where is he?" "How's his arm?"
"The son-of-a-gun! Couldn't keep him away, could they?"

"No fear. Not 'im. Bloody well wanted to be wiv 'is bleedin' boys, 'e
did. 'E ain't bloody well goin' to do 'is bloody solderin' in a
'cushy' job in Blighty--like some of 'em. Not after rysin' us. Do it
wiv 'is bloody self like a man; an' that's wot 'e is."

The speaker glared accusingly; but his declaration agreed too well
with what all thought for any one to take exception to it.

The new Commanding Officer had been wounded at St. Eloi on March 1st
and this was our first intimation of his return.

Park took up his tale. "He's over there with the C.O. now," and
switching: "Shell splinter got him in the eye. Guess it's gone and
maybe the other one too."

"By----!" he burst out passionately: "I hope it don't. He's been damn
good to me--and to you fellows too," he added fiercely, while his
lower lip quivered.

I think all stared anywhere but at Park, in a curious embarrassment.

"Got it goin' from one trench to another to see about the rations
comin' up instead of stayin' in like a 'dug-out wallah.' Got out on
top of the ground, walked across an' stopped one," he added bitterly.

A considerable draft of "old boys," ruddy of face and fresh from
hospital, together with some more new men reached us that night. We
"went up" again with the dusk of the following night and "took over"
our previous trenches in front of Belle-waarde Wood.

We were told that the Shropshires had been rather badly cut up in the
interval of their occupa