foot-slogging Lieutenant, foot-slogged into our midst one
day, borrowed a hole from a local rabbit, and took up his residence
therein. Now this mud-pushing Todd had a cousin in the same division,
one of those highly trained specialists who trickles about the country
shedding coils of barbed wire and calling them "dumps"--a sapper, in
short. One afternoon the sapping Todd, finding some old sheets of
corrugated iron that he had neglected to dump, sent them over to his
gravel-grinding cousin with his love and the request of a loan of a
dozen of soda. The earth-pounding Todd came out of his hole, gazed
on the corrugated iron and saw visions, dreamed dreams. He handed
the hole back to the rabbit and set to work to evolve a bungalow. By
evening it was complete. He crawled within and went to sleep, slept
like a drugged dormouse. At 10 P.M. a squadron of the Shetland Ponies
(for the purpose of deceiving the enemy all names in this article are
entirely fictitious) made our village. It was drizzling at the time,
and the Field Officer in charge was getting most of it in the neck.
He howled for his batman, and told the varlet that if there wasn't a
drizzle-proof bivouac ready to enfold him by the time he had put the
ponies to bye-byes there would be no leave for ten years. The batman
scratched his head, then slid softly away into the night. By the time
the ponies were tilting the last drops out of their nosebags the
faithful servant had scratched together a few sheets of corrugated,
and piled them into a rough shelter. The Major wriggled beneath it
and was presently putting up a barrage of snores terrible to hear. At
midnight a battalion of the Loamshire Light Infantry trudged into the
village. It was raining in solid chunks, and the Colonel Commanding
looked like Victoria Falls and felt like a submarine. He gave
expression to his sentiments in a series of spluttering bellows. His
batman trembled and faded into the darkness _a pas de loup_. By the
time the old gentleman had halted his command and cursed them "good
night" his resourceful retainer had found a sheet or two of corrugated
iron somewhere and assembled them into some sort of bivouac for the
reception of his lord. His lord fell inside, kicked off his boots and
slept instantly, slept like a wintering bear.

At 2 A.M. three Canadian privates blundered against our village and
tripped over it. They had lost their way, were mud from hoofs to
horns, dead beat, soaked to the ski