pected antique abandoned trenches, past dead cows
and pigs. We groped about the wretched shell-pitted fields, examining
the trenches we were about to take over. You would be surprised to find
how difficult a simple line of trenches can seem at night if you have
never seen them before.

You don't seem able to get the angles, somehow, nor to grasp how the
whole situation faces, or how you get from one part to another, and all
that sort of thing. I know that by the time I had been along the whole
lot, round several hundred traverses, and up dozens of communication
trenches and saps, all my mariner-like ability for finding my way back
to Neuve Eglise had deserted me. Those guides were absolutely necessary
in order to get us back to the headquarter farm. One wants a compass,
the pole star, and plenty of hope ever to get across those enormous
prairies--known as fields out there--and reach the place at the other
side one wants to get to. It is a long study before you really learn the
simplest and best way up to your own bit of trench; but when it comes to
learning everybody else's way up as well (as a machine gunner has to),
it needs a long and painful course of instruction--higher branches of
this art consisting of not only knowing the way up, but the _safest_ way
up.

The night we carried out this tour of inspection we were all left in a
fog as to how we had gone to and returned from the trenches. After we
had got in we knew, by long examination of the maps, how everything
lay, but it was some time before we had got the real practical hang of
it all.

Our return journey from the inspection was a pretty silent affair. We
all knew these were a nasty set of trenches. Not half so pleasant as the
Plugstreet ones. The conversations we had with the present owners made
it quite clear that warm times were the vogue round there. Altogether we
could see we were in for a "bit of a time."

We cleared off back to Neuve Eglise that night, and next day took those
trenches over. This was the beginning of my life at Wulverghem. When we
got in, late that night, we found that the post had arrived some time
before. Thinking there might be something for me, I went into the back
room where they sorted the letters, to get any there might be before
going off to my own billets. "There's only one for you, sir, to-night,"
said the corporal who looked after the letters. He handed me an
envelope. I opened it. Inside, a short note and a cheque.

"We