nces there are--but only "close." A delightful word that word
close, at the front!

The Germans were generous that afternoon. Another scream
seemed aimed at my head. L------ disagreed with me; he said that it
was aimed at his. We did not argue the matter to the point of a
personal quarrel, for it might have got both our heads. It burst back of
the trench about as far away as the other shell. After all, a trench is a
pretty narrow ribbon, even on a gunner's large scale map, to hit. It is
wonderful how, firing at such long range, he is able to hit a trench at
all.

This was all of the nine-inch variety for the time being. We got some
fours and fives as we walked along. Three bursting as near together
as the ticks of a clock made almost no smoke, as they brought some
tree limbs down and tore away a section of a trunk. Then the
thunderstorm moved on to another part of the line. Only, unlike the
thunderstorms of nature, this, which is man-made and controlled as a
fireman controls the nozzle of his hose, may sweep back again and
yet again over its path. All depends upon the decision of a German
artillery officer, just as whether or not a flower-bed shall get another
sprinkle depends upon the will of the gardener.

We were glad to turn out of the support trench into a communication
trench leading toward the front trench; into another gallery cut deep in
the fields, with scattered shell-pits on either side. Still more soldiers,
leaning against the walls or seated with their legs stretched out
across the bottom of the ditch; more waiting soldiers, only strung out
in a line and as used to the passing of shells as people living along
the elevated railroad line to the passing of trains. They did not look up
at the screams boring the air any more than one who lives under the
trains looks up every time that one passes. Theirs was the passivity
of a queue waiting in line before the entrance to a theatre or a ball-
grounds.

A senator or a lawyer, used to coolness in debate, or to presiding
over great meetings, or to facing crowds, who happened to visit the
trenches could have got reassurance from the faces of any one of
these private soldiers, who had been trained not to worry about death
till death came. Harrowing every one of these screams, taken by
itself. Instinctively, unnecessarily, you dodged at those which were
low--unnecessarily, because they were from British guns. No danger
from them unless there was a short fuse. To t