ttalion,
then occupying our trenches, were having rather a warm time of it, as
the Hun, instead of being a sportsman and shelling our batteries, used
to retaliate on our trenches.

We set off the following day for the trenches. It had started to rain
about 4 o'clock, so that by 7, when we reached the head of Mud Lane, we
had no reason to doubt the origin of this homely name.

In pleasing contrast to our growlings and grumblings as we took their
places, the Toronto men filed out prophesying all sorts of cheerful
things in store for us. All we could see ahead of us was plenty of work,
for the shelling they had received had smashed down our bulwarks and
annihilated the officers' kitchen--rather an elaborate structure, of
which we were justly fond--and they, in the sure and certain knowledge
of a relief, had only cleared away enough of the _debris_ to make the
trench passable.

[Illustration: OUR TRENCHES, PLUGSTREET WOOD.]

Meanwhile our listening posts, soothed with a wee drappie o' rum, went
over the parapet laden down with waterproof sheets fully determined to
make the best of a bad job, our sentries were posted, and the welcome
order to "Stand down" came along the trench. Those of us not otherwise
occupied turned into our dug-outs and were soon asleep. After a certain
stage one becomes unconscious to even a revolver-butt prodding one in
the ribs.

It seemed only a few minutes before the sergeant thrust his head into my
dug-out with a "Midnight, sir!" I groped around for my pocket lamp and
looked at my watch--some way you always hope the sergeant is wrong, but
he never is--and tumbled out to relieve poor Lyte, who had spent a
miserable four hours.

A rift in the clouds showed our friends of the midnight watch--the Great
Bear and Cassiopeia--twinkling merrily as though it had never rained for
a fortnight.

I sloshed my way down to the far end of the trench. Pools of water lay
ankle deep here and there along its length. Already one or two men, who
had just come off sentry, had started to drain these into little
catch-pools. From here it was baled by means of the ever-useful
Maconachie tin into an equally useful biscuit tin, which was afterwards
dumped on the enemy's side of the parapet.

In other places the men had turned in and were already asleep, so they
were promptly stirred up and told to "Get busy," and, for the night, the
blosh of the baling tin took the place of the smack of a shovel on a
freshly-placed