turned to reply to a question addressed to me by one of them the shell
came, and in a second there was not enough left of either for
identification. I picked myself up unhurt. Shells seem to have a way
with them--one man being taken, and the other left. And it is not
always the man nearest the shell that is taken.

They told me to go back to the support-trenches for tea; about three
hundred yards, and the communication-trench that I had to travel down
was as unhealthy as any place I have ever been in. I was told the
reason the enemy had its range so accurately was that it was of their
own building. The support-trenches seemed to be getting more shells,
even than the front line, and it looked as if I was walking out of the
frying-pan into the fire.

Tea was the last thing I was wanting, but, as others were eating, I had
to put up a bluff, though I felt it would be a sinful waste if I were
to be killed immediately afterward.

That first day, however, took away most of my fears, and thereafter I
got to fancy I possessed a charmed life and the bullet or shell was not
made that would harm me.

The most surprising thing of the life over there is the narrow escapes
one has. There are scores of men who have been in almost every battle
from the beginning, and are still there, and that day it seemed truly
as if I walked in a zone of safety, as shells would fall in front of me
and behind, and even pushed in the parapet against which I was leaning,
and I did not even get shell-shock.

I sat with my "dixie" of stew and lid of tea in the open doorway of a
dugout, and the whiz-bangs passed within twenty yards of me and pelted
me with pieces of dirt, but nothing hard enough to break the skin
struck me. We did not learn much about those trenches on this visit,
and were a sad little party that went back to our companions with the
news of what had befallen our comrades and the perils awaiting them.
The two remaining days spent in that little village were full of
foreboding. Those who had "gone west" were well loved, and but
yesterday so full of the joy of life.

Nearly every one wrote home those nights, as it might be for the last
time.

Under fire men are affected in different ways, but as for myself, I
must admit that after that first day I felt I was not to die on the
battlefield, and this gave me a confidence that many of my comrades
thought was due to lack of fear. Strange to say, this feeling of
security left me