angs low over the ground, follows inundations up and down,
and slinks across water: hanging for days over damp soil, and permeating
water with a sickly colour--an obvious danger to troops drinking this
liquid.

Where the country was flooded duck-boards were raised to a height
sufficient to stand above the water and presented at night (all
movements are generally done at nightfall) an alluring task of
maintaining balance on a narrow planking (couple of feat or so) adorned
with no handrails or supports and invisible five feet away. When Fritz
sends over gas and respirators have to be donned during the intricate
negotiation of this "pathway"----!

Clarke and Bennet, moving gingerly beneath two heavy ration issues,
paused abruptly to duck to a whining shell. The latter slipped, fell off
into the miniature ocean, clambered out.

"Oh, 'ell, bloomin' bread too--LOOK OUT!"

"That's the second dud."

"Yes, must be gas." Respirators on they were unable to peer a foot
either way, sat down uncomfortably on the boards and waited for the
attack to move away. But when they did stand up and gazed about them ...
WHICH WAY WAS WHICH?

The absence in places of any line or wiring (posts would not stand up in
the watery soil) permitted men o' nights to wander unawares towards the
Fritz trenches. A crack, a fall--for weeks the body would lie outside
the enemy lines until it rotted and fell apart. And someone was posted
"Missing."

Trench feet began to find its victims among the young Staffords--they
trekked away in agony, but withal glad to get out of it. With the
puzzling rapidity of trench casualties the daily roll increased without
anyone quite grasping how or when this or that man went. He would be
with you this morning, to-morrow you would miss him; inquire and learn
that he had stopped a Blighty.

Evans, an adherent of the occult, vowed that he had been visited by some
eternal being of the spirit world. Stumpy was profoundly interested.

"Wot'd 'e say?"

"Nothing much. Only that somethin' would portend for me to-morrow."

"Oh, did 'e want a drink?"

"Course not."

"If 'e 'ad asked you for your rum ration, would you," anxiously, "'ave
given it to 'im."

"Couldn't: 'adn't any left."

"Wot woz 'e like?"

"Tall, shadowy."

"An' you really believes it?"

"Yus. I 'ave proof--"

"I see. I, I s'pose 'e could give you anything you asked 'im for?"

"Within reason."

"Then," whispered ironically, "ask 'im next time t