ge semi-circular piece of iron under the ground. We
had three beds and a table, and so were comfortable. When one stood on
the earth which covered our roof, it was impossible to see any
suggestion of a home underneath. Nothing was in sight but the wide
expanse of rolling country cut up on all sides by trenches and shell
holes, and wearing a sort of khaki uniform of light brown mud. To the
east of us, lay the road bordered with leafless and battered trees,
past which went an interminable line of lorries, guns and limbers. We
were very comfortable, and at night when the winds were blowing and
the rain was coming down in sheets, it was not half bad after dinner
to read aloud Tennyson's "Ulysses" or other of my favourite poems. I
am not sure that I did not at times, relying upon the inclemency of
the weather overhead, recite some of my own. I know that one morning,
when I had awakened at about four o'clock, I turned on the light of a
storage battery which I had found in a German dugout, and sitting up
wrote the verses which I called "The Silent Toast" and which my (p. 174)
artillery friends approved of when I recited them at breakfast.

The aftermath of victory is of course very sad. Many were the gallant
men whose bodies were laid to rest in the little cemetery at Ecoivres.
The cemetery is well kept and very prettily situated. The relatives of
those who are buried there will be pleased to find the graves so
carefully preserved. The large crucifix which stands on a mound near
the gate is most picturesquely surrounded by trees. In the mound some
soldier, probably a Frenchman, had once made a dugout. The site was
evidently chosen with the idea that crucifixes were untouched by
shells, and therefore places of refuge from danger. I often thought,
as I looked at the crucifix with the human shelter beneath it, that it
might stand as a symbol of the hymn:--

"Rock of Ages cleft for me
Let me hide myself in Thee."

The engineers had had a dump for their material near the Bethune-Arras
road, and when they moved it forward to a place called the "Nine
Elms," the engineer officer gave me his dugout, which was partly
beside the road and partly under it. It consisted of several rooms,
one of which contained a bed, and had steps going down to a deep
chamber whither one could retire in case of shelling. It was good to
have such a large and comfortable establishment, and when Alberta was
chained up in her corner and I had strapped