, by-and-by the march
back to the rear, where there are tubs filled with hot water and an
outfit of clean clothes awaiting you, and nothing to do but rest and
sleep.

"How soon after we leave the trenches may we cheer?" officers have
been asked in the dead of winter, when water stood deep over the
porous mud and morning found a scale of ice around the legs.

You, nicely testing the temperature of your morning tub; you, satisfied
only with faucets of hot and cold water and a mat to stand on--you
know nothing about the joy of bathing. Your bath is a mere part of the
daily routine of existence. Try the trenches and get itchy with vermin;
then you will know that heaven consists of soap and hot water.

No bad odour assails your nostrils wherever you may go in the British
lines. Its cleanliness, if nothing else, would make British army
comradeship enjoyable. My wonder never ceases how Tommy keeps
himself so neat; how he manages to shave every day and get a part,
at least, of the mud off his uniform. This care makes him feel more as
if he were "at home" in barracks.

From the breastworks, Captain P------and I went for a stroll in the
Village, or the site of the village, silent except for the occasional
singing of a bullet. When we returned he lighted the candle on a stick
stuck into the wall of his earth-roofed house and suggested a nap. It
was three o'clock in the morning. Now I could see that my rubber
boots had grown so heavy because I was carrying so much of the soil
of Northern France. It looked as if I had gout in both feet--the over-
bandaged, stage type of gout--which were encased in large mud
poultices. I tried to stamp off the incubus, but it would not go. I tried
scraping one foot on the other, and what I scraped off seemed to
reattach itself as fast as I could remove it.

"Don't try!" said the captain. "Lie down and pull your boots off in the
doorway. Perhaps you will get some sleep before daybreak."

Sleep! Does a debutante go to sleep at her first ball? Sleep in such
good company, the company of this captain who was smiling all the
while with his eyes; smiling at his mud house, at the hardships in the
trenches, and, I hope, at having a guest who had been with armies
before!

It was the first time that I had been in the trenches all night; the first
time, indeed, when I had not been taken into them by an escort in a
kind of promenade. On this account I was in the family. If it is the right
kind of a famil