out soap and towels from
their packs, and proceed to the pump to lather and wash copiously. The
companies for the forward trench march down interminable communication
trenches, distribute themselves along the parapet, and also absorb
advice from the outgoing tenants--advice of the positions of enemy
snipers, the hours when activity and when peace may be expected, the
specially 'unhealthy' spots where a sniper's bullet or a bomb must be
watched for, the angles and loopholes that give the best look-out. The
trenches are deep and well-made, the parapets solidly constructed. For
four days or six, or as many as the regiment remains 'in,' the range of
the men's vision will be the walls of the trench, the piled sandbags,
the inside of their dug-outs, and a view (taken in peeps through a
loophole or reflected in a periscope mirror) of about fifty to a
hundred yards of 'neutral ground' and the German parapet beyond. The
neutral ground is covered with a jungle of coarse grass, edged on both
sides with a tangle of barbed wire.

Close to the German parapet are a few black, huddled heaps--dead
Germans, shot down while out in a working party on the wire at night,
and left there to rot, and some killed in their own trench, and tumbled
out over the parapet by their own comrades. The drowsy silence is
broken at long intervals by a rifle shot; a lark pours out a stream of
joyful thrilling song.

* * * * *

A mile or two back from the firing line a couple of big motor-cars
swing over the crest of a gentle rise, swoop down into the dip, and
halt suddenly. A little group of men with scarlet staff-bands on their
caps and tabs on their collars climb out of the cars and move off the
track into the grass of the hollow. They prod sticks at the ground,
stamp on it, dig a heel in, to test its hardness and dryness.

The General looks round. 'This is about as low-lying a spot as we have
on this part of front,' he says to his Chief of Staff. 'If it is dry
enough here it must be dry enough everywhere else.'

The Chief assents, and for a space the group stands looking round the
sunlit fields and up at the clear sky. But their thoughts are not of
the beauties of the peaceful landscape. The words of the General are
the key to all their thoughts. For them the promise of spring is a
grim and a sinister thing; to them the springy green turf carpet on the
fields means ground fit to bear the weight of teams and guns,