s to
spare, of course, so the question was, "What shall we make a parapet
of?"

We plodded off back to the village and groped around the ruins for
something solid and high enough to carry the gun. After about an hour's
climbing about amongst debris in the dark, and hauling ourselves up into
remnants of attics, etc., we came upon a sewing machine. It was one of
that sort that's stuck on a wooden table with a treadle arrangement
underneath. We saw an idea at a glance. Pull off the sewing machine, and
use the table. It was nearly high enough, and with just three or four
sandbags we felt certain it would do. We performed the necessary
surgical operation on the machine, and taking it in turns, padded off
down to the front line trench. We had a bit of a job with that table.
The parapet was a jumbled assortment of sandbags, clay, and old bricks
from the neighbouring barn: but we finally got a good sound parapet
made, and in about another hour's time had fixed a machine gun, with
plenty of ammunition, in a very unattractive position from the Boche
point of view. We all now felt better, and I'm certain that the men who
held that trench felt better too. But I am equally certain that they
would have stayed there _ad lib_ even if we hadn't thought of and
carried out an alternative arrangement. A few more nights of rain,
danger and discomfort, then the time would come for us to be relieved,
and those same men would be back at billets, laughing, talking and
smoking, buoyant as ever.

CHAPTER XV

ARRIVAL OF THE "JOHNSONS"--"WHERE
DID THAT ONE GO?"--THE FIRST FRAGMENT
DISPATCHED--THE EXODUS--WHERE?

Shortly after these events we experienced rather a nasty time in the
village. It had been decided, way back somewhere at headquarters, that
it was essential to hold the village in a stronger way than we had been
doing. More men were to be kept there, and a series of trenches dug in
and around it, thus forming means for an adequate defence should
disaster befall our front line trenches, which lay out on a radius of
about five hundred yards from the centre of the village. This meant
working parties at night, and a pretty considerable collection of
soldiers lurking in cavities in various ruined buildings by day.

Anyone will know that when a lot of soldiers congregate in a place it is
almost impossible to prevent someone or other being seen, or smoke from
some fire showing, or, even worse, a light visible at night from some
i