overnment had given him a shovel, "an' 'ere I am,
workin' like a bloomin' navvy, fillin' sandbags full o' France, w'en I up
an' gets plugged!" The men who most bitterly resented the pick-and-shovel
phase of army life were given a great deal of it to do for that very
reason. One of my comrades was shot in the leg while digging a refuse
pit. The wound was a bad one and he suffered much pain, but the
humiliation was even harder to bear. What could he tell them at home?

"Do you think I'm a go'n' to s'y I was a-carryin' a sandbag full of old
jam tins back to the refuse pit w'en Fritzie gave me this 'ere one in the
leg? Not so bloomin' likely! I was afraid I'd get one like this! Ain't it
a rotten bit o' luck!"

If he had to be a casualty Tommy wanted to be an interesting one. He
wanted to fall in the heat of battle, not in the heat of inglorious
fatigue duty.

But there was more heroic work to be done: going out on listening patrol,
for example. One patrol, consisting of a sergeant or a corporal and four
or five privates, was sent out from each company. It was the duty of
these men to cover the area immediately in front of the company line of
trench, to see and hear without being discovered, and to report
immediately any activity of the enemy, above or below ground, of which
they might learn. They were on duty for from three to five hours, and
might use a wide discretion in their prowlings, provided they kept within
the limits of frontage allotted to their own company, and returned to the
meeting-place where the change of reliefs was made. These requirements
were not easily complied with, unless there were trees or other prominent
landmarks standing out against the sky by means of which a patrol could
keep its direction.

The work required, above everything else, cool heads and stout hearts.
There was the ever-present danger of meeting an enemy patrol or bombing
party, in which case, if they could not be avoided, there would be a
hand-to-hand encounter with bayonets, or a noisy exchange of
hand-grenades. There was danger, too, of a false alarm started by a
nervous sentry. It needs but a moment for such an alarm to become
general, so great is the nervous tension at which men live on the
firing-line. Terrific fusillades from both sides followed while the
listening patrols flattened themselves out on the ground, and listened,
in no pleasant frame of mind, to the bullets whistling over their heads.
But at night, and under th