nt a trail of bullets may spring without warning at you--and if ONE
machine-gun shot gets you, another FIVE will be somewhere in your body
before you reach the turf. It appears an impossibility to carry on alive
in such an undertaking from night to night; but still you DO IT. It is
funny--afterwards.

Robin hated it, after falling and introducing twenty barbs to that
portion of him utilised usually in a chair; he had to reline a little
to one side for a couple of days. Then blood poisoning set in, he
reported "sick," and was sent down the line as a casualty.

"Of all bloomin' luck." Stumpy growled; "'ere's me wots fallen down two
shell 'oles and nearly twisted me bloomin' neck, been knocked over by a
shell wot capsized all my rum issue--an' not a sign of a Blighty one."

"It's a pity you didn't," Le Huray observed.

"Wot?"

"Twist yer bloomin' neck."

"Look 'ere, my lad, if I comes over there I'll twist yer tongue and tie
it up behind yer 'ead, an' it wont be a Blighty yer'll 'ave--no, it'll
be a blooming' corfin."

"Shut yer row, the two of you," Casey shouted, "yer like a couple wots
been married a year, chewin' each others 'ead orf. Come yere an' give me
a 'and, Stumpy." And he turned again to the task of clearing a layer of
mud from his rifle bolt with a grimy piece of rag an inch square.

There is a refreshing originality (sic) in the al fresco meals partaken
of in the fresh open air, in a comfortable trench--so comfortable that
legs are twelve inches too long, knees in the way of your chin, and
somebody's boots making doormats of your tiny bit of cheese. Water and
tea--when you get it--has a most uncommon flavour of petrol due to being
transported in petrol cans. Stumpy was of the opinion that the War
Office should be advised to utilise rum jars instead.

Fritz has a gentlemanly knack of dropping a shell near you and
depositing a mighty chunk of black filth in the very midst of your grub.
Resultant language unprintable.

Slight falls of snow began to take place, the wind increased and nights
in the trenches became one long vista of drawn-out agony. Hands and feet
froze; maintain circulation was an absolute physical impossibility: but
it had to be faced through the long, over long, hours of waiting, and
there was no alternative, no remedy. You suffered, Royal Guernseys, men
of a warm, sunny isle, who had not hitherto known the harsh winter of
miles inland spots. But you stuck it well, rifle grasped in a