, guards, and C.B., picking up paper near the billets,
grousing and growing thin on short rations--during spare moments they
are used for fighting.

Detraining at Brandhoek, the Ten Hundred marched to Brake Camp, a
rambling collection of huts built in a wood near the main road running
between Poperinghe and Ypres, within a short distance of Vlamertynghe.

It was "Pop!" Unchanged, grim and grey, visited day and night by bomb
and shell with the ceaseless activity of that Belgian area. A battalion
of Worcesters, whom the Normans were relieving, painted a merry picture
of the sodden sector.

"Fritz ain't 'alf playin' 'ell wi' the front line. Washed out two
blasted regiments in less than a week...."

"No bloomm' trenches up there. Only shell 'oles an' hundreds of bodies.
Ration parties can't get up wi' the grub...."

"Jerry shells like 'ell orl night an' sends over gas in shells and cloud
orl day. Three 'undred casualties last week an' I 'eard that alf of 'em
kicked the bucket...."

"Old Jerry 'as a million troops from Russia waitin' to come over next
month for his offensive...."

"Yus, Sir Daggie 'Aig sez 'e must sacrifice 'is First Lines. An', wots
more, yer up to the neck in water...."

The Normans slept that night haunted by nightmare visitations created by
minds pervaded with strong "wind-upity." Stumpy succumbed to a. fit of
depression from which nothing could rouse him. Evans (a Stafford) gave
him a fag.

"Cheer up," he said.

"Can't? Bloomin' water up to yer neck an' they don't issue lifebelts an'
I can't swim."

"Garn. That's only wot they SEZ."

"Gas an' shells an' troops."

"Only bloomin' rumours."

"An' no ration parties can got up--oh gawd!"

"Wot about it?"

"No ration parties means no grub an' NO rum. Wot a pore Tommy 'as got
ter put up with."

The following day marching through Ypres they moved further up the Line
to a camp situated near St. Jean and from whence they would make their
final preparations and march towards the duckboard (a series of boards
resembling actual duck-boards and raised to a height above the ground
varying in accordance to the depth of water) track winding up the
wasted shell-torn soil to the communication trenches.

The "atmosphere" of the place was painfully reminiscent to the survivors
from the previous September of the nerve-wrecking task that had been
their unfortunate lot during that Baptism of Fire. The grim devastation
of the flat, water-covered country