shall be very glad to accept your sketch, 'Where did that one go
to?' From the _Bystander_"--the foundation-stone of _Fragments from
France_.

CHAPTER XVII

WULVERGHEM--THE DOUVE--CORDUROY
BOARDS--BACK AT OUR FARM

We got out of the frying-pan into the fire when we went to Wulverghem--a
much more exciting and precarious locality than Plugstreet. During all
my war experiences I have grown to regard Plugstreet as the unit of
tranquillity. I have never had the fortune to return there since those
times mentioned in previous chapters. When you leave Plugstreet you take
away a pleasing memory of slime and reasonable shelling, which is more
than you can say for the other places. If you went to Plugstreet after,
say, the Ypres Salient, it would be more or less like going to a
convalescent home after a painful operation.

But, however that may be, we were now booked for Wulverghem, or rather
the trenches which lie along the base of the Messines ridge, about a
mile in front of that shattered hamlet. Two days after our tour of
inspection we started off to take over. The nuisance about these
trenches was that the point where one had to unload and proceed across
country, man-handling everything, was abnormally far away from the
firing line. We had about a mile and a half to do after we had marched
collectively as a battalion, so that my machine-gunners were obliged to
carry the guns and all the tackle we needed all that distance to their
trenches. This, of course, happened every time we "came in."

The land where these trenches lay was a vast and lugubrious expanse of
mud, with here and there a charred and ragged building. On our right lay
the River Douve, and, on our left, the trenches turned a corner back
inwards again. In front lay the long line of the Messines ridge. The
Boches had occupied this ridge, and our trenches ran along the valley at
its foot. The view which the Boches got by being perched on this hill
rendered them exactly what their soul delights in, _i.e._, "uber alles."
They can see for miles. However, those little disadvantages have not
prevented us from efficiently maintaining our trenches at the far end of
the plain, in spite of the difficulty of carrying material across this
flat expanse.

I forget what night of the week we went in and took over those trenches,
but, anyhow, it was a precious long one. I had only seen the place once
before, and in the darkness of the night had a long and arduous j