on it.

On entering Vlamertinghe we saw signs of shelling on most of the
buildings, particularly around the church and the square, the steeple of
the former forming, of course, the aiming mark for the German guns.
Here, too, the body of a woman lay half in and half out of a doorway.
The place seemed absolutely deserted. An aeroplane droned overhead, but
whether our own or the enemy's we could not ascertain. However, we took
no chances and marched on, hugging the shelter of the walls on either
side of the street.

In this formation we were met by the gaunt figure of old Joey ----, our
quarter-master. He fell in beside Major V---- and guided us to our
transport lines, a farm a little on the Ypres side of the town. Here we
lay for half an hour munching biscuits and bully beef and watching an
anti-aircraft gun shelling the aeroplane we had noticed before, which
was now low enough to distinguish the sinister black crosses painted on
its wings.

This was the reason for the extraordinary silence on the part of the
guns, so skilfully hidden all around us.

The "Archibalds," as the anti-aircraft guns are popularly known, seemed
to be making extraordinarily bad practice as the fleecy puffs of
shrapnel burst all around the plane without apparent effect, and the
machine, having spotted something, dropped a signal that burst into
brilliant sparkles and turned for the enemy lines.

At this moment Joey returned from the outhouse concealing the
telephonists with instructions that we were to proceed to the field,
where the battalion was dug in at once.

CHAPTER X

THE BREAKING IN

"We take the old road we have taken for years;
For you cannot cut corners in war, it appears."

The truth of this old maxim was impressed on us by the roundabout route
we took to reach the field only a few hundred yards away where the
remainder of the battalion lay.

Actually about two companies strong, they looked a mere handful as they
lay huddled close to the hedges in the shallowest of shelter pits
scratched in the soil with the field entrenching tool.

The draft was immediately ordered to "dig in," as the plane we had been
watching a few minutes before had dropped its signal directly over this
position.

We lost no time in digging more of these shallow pits, that reminded one
rather gruesomely of graves, and had barely scraped them deep enough to
roll into before a hail of small high-explosive shell fell all around
us.

For hal