gloomily on to the back rail.

"Carn't see wot they got to be so blinkin' 'appy abart," he muttered
savagely; "I don't believe it's 'arf bad in them trenches." He ruminated
bitterly on the thought that his job was probably the worst one on the
whole front, and made a resolve to put the matter right.

When the final stopping-place had been reached and the 20th Mudlarkers,
after the usual indescribable melee, had been put upon the path that would
ultimately lead them (if they were fortunate enough to avoid all guides,
philosophers and friends) to their trench, the man of oil was profanely
grieved to discover that Albert Snape had abandoned X33 for the unknown.

As a matter of fact Albert had slipped away and followed the Mudlarkers,
with a hazy idea that a rifle would fortuitously present itself. That an
extra unit could possibly be noticed never occurred to him. He had a vague
intention of joining a cavalry regiment. Very soon he lost the Mudlarkers,
and then, by an easy sequence of events, himself.

"Wha goes there?" whispered a hoarse voice almost in his ear. It gave him
quite an unpleasant start, but, suppressing his first inspiration, which
was to say the Life Guards, he answered, "I'm a Mudlarker!"

"This iss the Seaforths in supporrt," remarked the sentry; "ye'll be in the
firrst line, na doot. Ye'll hae to go back, an' it's the firrst turnin' tae
the left, an' keep as strecht as ye can." The Highlander stepped back into
the deeper shadows and the self-recruited Mudlarker continued his career.

He traversed what seemed to him an interminable number of trenches without
encountering anyone. There was a reason for this lack of companionship, but
it did not at first appeal to his imagination. Suddenly he was startled by
the vicious "phut, phut, phut" of unpleasantly close shooting, and bullets
began to splash and grease along the bottom of the trench, accompanied by
the stutter of a machine gun.

Miraculously untouched, he slid over the parados and lay, sweating with
fright, in the watery furrow of a turnip field.

The trench was one that was seldom used, being thoroughly exposed to
enfilading fire. At stated periods through the night a machine gun was
turned on, a proceeding which, beyond gratifying the Huns, had no sort of
effect. Albert, in blissful ignorance of all such customs, floundered about
amongst the turnips until he came across a Jack Johnson crater. From this
he emerged even wetter than before. A li