hing and talking and singing songs in
loud, boisterous voices which contrasted strangely with our timid
noiselessness. I was marching with one of the trench guides who had been
sent back to pilot us to our position. I asked him if the Tommies in the
houses were not in danger of being heard by the enemy. He laughed
uproariously at this, whereupon one of our officers, a little second
lieutenant, turned and hissed in melodramatic undertones, "Silence in the
ranks there! Where do you think you are!" Officers and men, we were new
to the game then, and we held rather exaggerated notions as to the amount
of care to be observed in moving up to the trenches.

"Blimy, son!" whispered the trench guide, "you might think we was only a
couple o' 'unnerd yards away from Fritzie's trenches! We're a good two
an' a 'arf miles back 'ere. All right to be careful arter you gets closer
up; but they's no use w'isperin' w'en you ain't even in rifle range."

With lights, of course, it was a different matter altogether. Can't be
too careful about giving the enemy artillery an aiming mark. This was the
reason all the doors and windows of the ruined cottages were so carefully
blanketed.

"Let old Fritzie see a light,--''Ello!' 'e says, 'blokes in billets!' an'
over comes a 'arf-dozen shells knockin' you all to blazes."

As we came within the range of rifle fire, we again changed our
formation, and marched in single file along the edge of the road. The
sharp _crack! crack!= of small arms now sounded with vicious and ominous
distinctness. We heard the melancholy song of the ricochets and spent
bullets as they whirled in a wide arc, high over our heads, and
occasionally the less pleasing _phtt! phtt!_ of those speeding straight
from the muzzle of a German rifle. We breathed more freely when we
entered the communication trench in the center of a little thicket, a
mile or more back of the first-line trenches.

We wound in and out of what appeared in the darkness to be a hopeless
labyrinth of earthworks. Cross-streets and alleys led off in every
direction. All along the way we had glimpses of dugouts lighted by
candles, the doorways carefully concealed with blankets or pieces of old
sacking. Groups of Tommies, in comfortable nooks and corners, were
boiling tea or frying bacon over little stoves made of old iron buckets
or biscuit tins.

I marveled at the skill of our trench guide who went confidently on in
the darkness, with scarcely a pause. At l