urmurs that
fall on the ear of the soul. I have felt a touch on the shoulder as
though one would speak to me when there has been no one by.

It is the grave of ten thousand unburied dead, but the grinning skulls
and quivering jelly or the few rags that flutter in the wind are not
the comrades that we knew. I think their spirits hover near, for they
cannot go to their abiding-place till victory has been won. They are
ever seeking to pierce the veil of sense so that they may add their
strength to our arms, and these make for us of No Man's Land "no
strange place," and give to our sentries encouragement until the land
of No Man vanishes and our possession reaches to the barrier of the
enemy barbed wire. My nights in No Man's Land if added together would
total many months, and I grew to feel that it was one of the safest
places on the whole front.

There was one night when I got a huge fright. I was crawling alongside
a ridge--it had been an old irrigation farm, and this was a low levee
running across--I heard on the other side a splash which I thought was
made by one of the innumerable rats, but I put up my head and looked
over--so did Fritz, not a yard away! We both stared blankly in each
other's face for a long second and then both of us turned and bolted.
This was excusable for a German, but I have no defense. When I went
back to look for him, after a court martial by my own conscience, he
was nowhere to be seen.

There was another night when Fritz got the better of me. In my
explorations I came across a path through his barbed wire which was
evidently the place where his patrols came out. I thought I would
provide a surprise-party for him, so I planted some percussion bombs
and put a small Union Jack in the centre. In the morning the Union
Jack was gone and a German flag in its place. Everybody from the
brigadier down rubbed it in that Fritz was too smart for me.

But after this the tide turned and came in in a flood of ill luck for
Fritz. It was a pitch-black night and the occasional star-shells only
served to make the black more intense when they faded. As we crawled
out one behind the other each had to keep a hand on the foot ahead so
as not to get separated. We made several ineffectual attempts to find
the opening in our barbed wire and then cut a new one. Was this like
the darkness after Calvary? The red signal-rockets ascending from the
enemy's trenches gave no light, but only burnt for a seco