way--truck of which
only the metal remained, the distant fringe of trees like gallows on the
sky-line, the broken spire of a church which could be seen in the
round O of the telescope when the weather was not too misty. In "quiet"
sections of the line the only variation to the routine was the number
of casualties day by day, by casual shell-fire or snipers' bullets, and
that became part of the boredom. "What casualties?" asked the adjutant
in his dugout.

"Two killed, three wounded, sir."

"Very well... You can go."

A salute in the doorway of the dugout, a groan from the adjutant
lighting another cigarette, leaning with his elbow on the deal table,
staring at the guttering of the candle by his side, at the pile of forms
in front of him, at the glint of light on the steel helmet hanging
by its strap on a nail near the shelf where he kept his safety-razor,
flash--lamp, love-letters (in an old cigar-box), soap, whisky--bottle
(almost empty now), and an unread novel.

"Hell!... What a life!"

But there was always work to do, and odd incidents, and frights, and
responsibilities.

It was worse--this boredom--for men behind the lines; in lorry columns
which went from rail-head to dump every damned morning, and back again
by the middle of the morning, and then nothing else to do for all the
day, in a cramped little billet with a sulky woman in the kitchen, and
squealing children in the yard, and a stench of manure through the small
window. A dull life for an actor who had toured in England and America
(like one I met dazed and stupefied by years of boredom--paying too much
for safety), or for a barrister who had many briefs before the war and
now found his memory going, though a young man, because of the narrow
limits of his life between one Flemish village and another, which was
the length of his lorry column and of his adventure of war. Nothing ever
happened to break the monotony--not even shell-fire. So it was also in
small towns like Hesdin, St.-Pol, Bruay, Lillers--a hundred others
where officers stayed for years in charge of motor-repair shops,
ordnance-stores, labor battalions, administration offices, claim
commissions, graves' registration, agriculture for soldiers, all kinds
of jobs connected with that life of war, but not exciting.

Not exciting. So frightful in boredom that men were tempted to take to
drink, to look around for unattached women, to gamble at cards with
any poor devil like themselves. Those w