, the firing ceased, and word came down the line,
"Counter-attack against the ---- Guards; and jolly well beaten off too."
Another was attempted before daybreak, and again the same torrent of
lead, the same hideous uproar, the same sickening smell of lyddite, the
same ghastly noon-day effect, the same gradual silence, and the same
result.

II. DAMAGED TRENCHES

The brief respite which we enjoyed during our first night soon came to an
end. We were given time, however, to make our trenches tenable. Early the
following morning we set to work removing the wreckage of human bodies.
Never before had death revealed itself so terribly to us. Many of the men
had been literally blown to pieces, and it was necessary to gather the
fragments in blankets. For weeks afterward we had to eat and sleep and
work and think among such awful sights. We became hardened to them
finally. It was absolutely essential that we should.

The trenches and dugouts had been battered to pieces by the British
artillery fire before the infantry assault, and since their capture the
work of destruction had been carried on by the German gunners. Even in
their wrecked condition we could see how skillfully they had been
constructed. No labor had been spared in making them as nearly
shell-proof and as comfortable for living quarters as it is possible for
such earthworks to be. The ground here was unusually favorable. Under a
clayish surface soil, there was a stratum of solid chalk. Advantage of
this had been taken by the German engineers who must have planned and
supervised the work. Many of the shell-proof dugouts were fifteen and
even twenty feet below the surface of the ground. Entrance to these was
made in the front wall of the trench on a level with the floor. Stairways
just large enough to permit the passage of a man's body led down to them.
The roofs were reinforced with heavy timbers. They were so strongly built
throughout that most of them were intact, although the passageways
leading up to the trench were choked with loose earth.

There were larger surface dugouts with floors but slightly lower than
that of the trench. These were evidently built for living quarters in
times of comparative quiet. Many of them were six feet wide and from
twenty to thirty feet long, and quite palaces compared to the wretched
little "funk-holes" to which we had been accustomed. They were roofed
with logs a foot or more in diameter placed close together and one on top