d by "D" Company of the 8th Battalion. The officer on duty with the
7th Battalion kindly acted as my guide. The day had worn away, and the
bright moon was lighting up the maze of yellow trenches. We passed
along, exchanging many greetings at different places, until we came to
the outpost of the 8th Battalion at the top of the path which leads
down to the chalk-pit. Here four men were sitting keeping guard. They
gave me a warm greeting, and I told them that if I were not in a hurry
to let my guide go back to his lines, I would stop and recite some of
my poems in the moonlight. It struck me that they seemed more amused
than disappointed. So wishing them good-luck, we started onward down
the slippery path which led into the pit, where many shells had torn
up the ground and where were remains not only of uniforms and mess-tins
and rifles but also of German bodies. We had hardly reached the
entrance to the dugout when two or three of those shells which the men
called "pineapples" arrived in quick succession. They sounded so (p. 237)
close that we dived into the place of refuge. We found the O.C. of the
company inside, and he kindly arranged to give me a large bed all to
myself in one of the chambers of the dugout. Suddenly a runner
appeared and told us that the pineapples had hit the outpost, killing
not only some of the men to whom I had just been talking but also the
Adjutant of the battalion. I at once got up and went back to the
place. The line was quiet now, and the whole scene was brightly
lighted by the moon and looked so peaceful that one could hardly
imagine that we were in the midst of war, but, lying in the deep
shadow at the bottom of the trench, with its face downwards, was the
body of the Adjutant. He had been killed instantly. In the outpost
beside the trench, were the bodies of the men who had been on duty
when I passed a few minutes before.

I stayed with the sentry guarding the bodies until a stretcher party
arrived and carried them away. Then I went back to the dugout and
visited the men who were crowded into its most extraordinary labyrinth
of passages and recesses. In the very centre of the place, which must
have been deep underground, there was a kitchen, and the cooks were
preparing a hot meal for the men to eat before "stand to" at dawn. The
men of course were excessively crowded and many were heating their own
food in mess-tins over smoking wicks steeped in melted candle grease.
All were bright and