ey sang "Tipperary" and "Rule Britannia," and "God
Save the King," so quaintly and prettily that the men kept them at it for
hours at a time.

And so, during a week of stifling heat, we moved slowly forward. The
sound of the guns grew in intensity, from a faint rumbling to a subdued
roar, until one evening, sitting in the open windows of a stable loft, we
saw the far-off lightenings of bursting shells, and the trench rockets
soaring skyward; and we heard bursts of rifle and machine-gun fire, very
faintly, like the sound of chestnuts popping in an oven.

CHAPTER V

THE PARAPET-ETIC SCHOOL

"We're going in to-night."

The word was given out by the orderly sergeants at four in the afternoon.
At 4.03 every one in camp had heard the news. Scores of miniature hand
laundries, which were doing a thriving business down by the duck pond,
immediately shut up shop. Damp and doubtfully clean ration bags, towels,
and shirts which were draped along the fences, were hastily gathered
together and thrust into the capacious depths of pack-sacks. Members of
the battalion's sporting contingent broke up their games of tuppenny brag
without waiting for "just one more hand," an unprecedented thing. The
makers of war ballads, who were shouting choruses to the merry music of
the mouth-organ band, stopped in the midst of their latest composition,
and rushed off to get their marching order together. At 4.10 every one,
with the exception of the officers' servants, was ready to move off.
This, too, was unprecedented. Never before had we made haste more gladly
or less needfully, but never before had there been such an incentive to
haste. We were going into the trenches for the first time.

The officers' servants, commonly called "batmen," were unfortunate
rankers who, in moments of weakness, had sold themselves into slavery for
half a crown per week. The batman's duty is to make tea for his officer,
clean his boots, wash his clothes, tuck him into bed at night, and make
himself useful generally. The real test of a good batman, however, is his
carrying capacity. In addition to his own heavy burden he must carry
various articles belonging to his officer: enameled wash-basins, rubber
boots, bottles of Apollinaris water, service editions of the modern
English poets and novelists, spirit lamps, packages of food, boxes of
cigars and cigarettes,--in fact, all of his personal luggage which is