t they set out, marching in the gathering dusk down the
road eastwards, where in a mile or two they would strike the huge rabbit
warren of trenches that joined the French line to the north and south.
Once or twice they had to open out and go by the margin of the road to
let ambulances or commissariat wagon go by, but there was but little
traffic here, as the main lines of communication lay on other roads.
High above them, scarcely visible in the dusk, an English aeroplane
droned back from its reconnaissance, and once there was the order given
to scatter over the fields as a German Taube passed across them. This
caused much laughter and chaff among the men, and Michael heard one
say, "Dove they call it, do they? I'd like to make a pigeon-pie of
them doves." Soon they scrambled back on to the road again, and the
interminable "Tipperary" was resumed, in whistle and song. Michael
remembered how Aunt Barbara had heard it at a music-hall, and had spoken
of it as a new and catchy tune which you could carry away with you.
Nowadays, it carried you away. It had become the audible soul of the
British army.

The trench which Michael's company were to occupy for the next
forty-eight hours was in the first firing-line, and to reach it they had
to pass in single file up a mile of communication trenches, from
which on all sides, like a vast rabbit warren, there opened out other
galleries and passages that led to different parts of this net-work
of the lines. It ran not in a straight line but in short sections with
angles intervening, so under no circumstances could any considerable
length of it be enfiladed, and was lit here and there by little oil
lamps placed in embrasures in one or other wall of it, or for some
distance at a time it was dark except for the vague twilight of the
cloudy sky overhead. Then again, as they approached the firing-line, it
would suddenly become intensely bright, when from the English lines, or
from those of the Germans which lay not more than two hundred yards
in front of them, a fireball or star-shell was sent up, that caused
everything it shone upon to leap into vivid illumination. Usually, when
this happened, there came from one side or the other a volley of rifle
shots, that sounded like the crack of stock-whips, and once or twice a
bullet passed over their heads with the buzz as of some vicious stinging
insect. Here and there, where the bottom lay in soft and clayey soil,
they walked through mud that c