m nor us, but he did not so much as grunt during
the operation. The nearest he came to complaining was when he asked me
to let him lay his hand across my body to ease it, at the same time
remarking: "I guess when they get us to Germany they'll let us write,
and I'll be able to write mother and then she'll not know I've lost my
hand." He was a most valiant and faithful soldier.

The perpetual rain and mist peculiar to that low-lying land added to
our wretched condition and increased the pain of the wounds that most
of us suffered from.

At six o'clock our guards returned and curtly ordered us to our feet.
We were taken back to the trench, where our officer friend had us
searched again. Here for the first time my two corporal's stripes were
noticed and a mild excitement ensued. "Korporal! Korporal!" they
exclaimed and crowded up the better to inspect me and verify the
report, and jabbering "_Ja! Ja!_" Apparently a captured corporal was a
rarity. Strangely enough, they paid little or no attention to the
sergeant of our party, although he had the three stripes of his rank
up.

As I happened to be in the lead of our party and the first to enter
the trench, I was the first man searched and so had to await the
examination of the others. Worn out by the events of the day and the
wound I had received early in the morning from a shell fragment, I
fell asleep against the wall of the trench where I sat.

I was awakened by a poke in the ribs from Scarfe. "Time to shift,
mate."

I rose to my feet and, following the instructions of the officer, led
the way along the trench. The Germans had already, with their usual
industry, gotten the trench into some sort of shape again, with the
parapet shifted over to the other side and facing Belle-waarde Wood.
And everywhere along its length I noticed the bodies of our dead built
into it to replace sandbags while others lay on the parados at the
rear.

It was not nice. The faces of men we had known and had called comrade
looked at us now in ghastly disarray from odd sections of both walls.
Already they were taking a brick-like shape from the weight of the
filled bags on top of them. In places the legs and arms protruded,
brushing us as we passed. However, this was war and quite ethical.

Naturally we had to crowd by the other occupants of the trench. And
each took a poke at us as we went by, some with their bayonets,
saying: "Verdamnt Englaender" and: "Englaender Schwein,"--pigs of
Eng