me to a
level gallery, and in the distance, by the aid of a glow-lamp, I could
see my companion crouching down, with a warning finger upon his lips to
assure silence. The other side of him was a man of the tunnelling
section, who had been at his post listening. The silence was uncanny
after the din outside. In a few moments I heard a queer, muffled
tap--tap--tap, coming through the earth on the left. I crept closer to
my companion, and with my mouth close to his ear enquired whether that
was the Bosche working.

"Yes," he said, "but listen with this," giving me an instrument very
similar to a doctor's stethoscope.

I put it to my ear and rested the other end upon a ledge of mud. The
effect was like some one speaking through a telephone. I could
distinctly hear the impact of the pickaxe wielded by the Bosche upon the
clay and chalk, and the falling of the debris.

I turned to him with a smile. "Brother Bosche will shortly have a rise
in life?"

"Yes," said he, "I think we shall 'blow' first. It's going to be a race,
though."

Final orders were given to the man in charge, then we crawled up again
into the din of the crashing shells. I was more at home in these
conditions. Down below the silence was too uncanny for me. When I
reached our dug-out once more a message was waiting for me to return to
H.Q., as important things were in prospect the following morning.

The message was urgent. Mines were to be blown at an early hour. I
therefore decided that the best thing to do was to go into the trenches
and stay the night, and so be prepared for anything that might happen.
Little did I dream what the next forty-eight hours were going to bring.
It's a good thing sometimes we don't know what the future has in store
for us. The stoutest heart might fail under the conditions created by
the abnormal atmosphere of a modern battlefield.

I prepared to depart at 8 p.m., and bidding adieu to my friends, I
started off in the car. The guns were crashing out continuously. Several
times I pulled the car up to shelter under some ruins. Then for a few
minutes there was a lull, and directing my chauffeur to go ahead at top
speed we reached our destination safely. I had barely entered this scene
of desolation when Bosche shells came hurtling overhead and fell with a
deafening explosion a short distance away. Here I had my first taste of
gas from the German weeping shells. The air was suddenly saturated with
an extraordinarily sweet sme